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GEORGE WASHINGTON 



GEORGE 
WASHINGTON 

BY 

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER 



I have ever thought 
Nature doth nothing so great for great men 
As when she 's pleased to make them lords of truth: 
Integrity of life is fame's best friend, 
Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end. 

John Webster: The Duclms of Malfi, v, 5. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

^f)e I^it)er£(itie ^reissf Cambribge 

1922 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY WILLIAM R. THAYER 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



3^"" 



tKbe 3RUier<i6e T^xtii 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
> PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



OCT 13 '22 



ClA6836e4 



TO 

HARRIET SEARS AMORY 

WITH THE BEST WISHES 

OF 

HER OLD FRIEND 

THE AUTHOR 

May 20, 1933 
> 



PREFACE 

TO obviate misunderstanding, it seems well to 
warn the reader that this book aims only at 
giving a sketch of George Washington's life and acts. 
I was interested to discover, if I could, the human 
residue which I felt sure must persist in Washington 
after all was said. Owing to the pernicious drivel of 
the Reverend Weems no other great man in history- 
has had to live down such a mass of absurdities and 
deliberate false inventions. At last after a century 
and a quarter the rubbish has been mostly cleared 
away, and only those who wilfully prefer to deceive 
themselves need waste time over an imaginary Father 
of His Country amusing himself with a fictitious 
cherry-tree and hatchet. 

The truth is that the material about George Wash- 
ington is very voluminous. His military records 
cover the eight years of the Revolutionary War. 
His political work is preserved officially in the re- 
ports of Congress. Most of the public men who were 
his contemporaries left memoirs or correspondence 
in which he figures. Above all there is the edition, in 
fourteen volumes, of his own writings compiled by 
Mr. Worthington C. Ford. And yet many persons 



viii PREFACE 

find something that baffles them. They do not rec- 
ognize a definite flesh and blood Virginian named 
Washington behind it all. Even so sturdy an his- 
torian as Professor Channing calls him the most 
elusive of historic personages. Who has not wished 
that James Boswell could have spent a year with 
Washington on terms as intimate as those he spent 
with Dr. Johnson and could have left a report of 
that intimacy .-^ 

In this sketch I have conceived of Washington as 
of some superb athlete equipped for every ordeal 
which life might cause him to face. The nature of 
each ordeal must be briefly stated; brief also, but 
sufficient, the account of the way he accomplished 
it. I have quoted freely from his letters wherever it 
seemed fitting, first, because in them you get his per- 
sonal authentic statement of what happened as he 
saw it, and you get also his purpose in making any 
move; and next, because nothing so well reveals the 
real George Washington as those letters do. Who- 
ever will steep himself in them will hardly declare 
that their writer remains an elusive person beyond 
finding out or understanding. In the course of read- 
ing them you will come upon many of those "im- 
ponderables" which are the secret soul of state- 
craft. 

And so with all humility — for no one can spend 



PREFACE ix 

much time with Washington, and not feel profound 
humiHty — I leave this little sketch to its fate, and 
hope that some readers will find in it what I strove 
to put in it. 

W. R. T. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts 
June II, 1922 



CONTENTS 

I. Origins and Youth i 

II. Marriage. The Life of a Planter 27 

III. The First Gun 47 

IV. Boston Freed 66 
V. Trenton and Valley Forge 74 

VI. Aid from France; Traitors 107 

VII. Washington Returns to Peace 130 

VIII. Welding the Nation 151 

IX. The First American President 178 

X. The Jay Treaty 203 

XI. Washington Retires from Public Life 215 

XII. Conclusion 231 

Index 261 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

George Washington : The Statue by Houdon in the 
Capitol at Richmond, Virginia Frontispiece 

Martha Washington 34 

From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart in the Museum of Fine 
Arts, Boston 

Colonel George Washington 6o 

From the portrait painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, 
now owned by Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va. 

Washington at the Battle of Trenton 86 

From the painting by Colonel John Trumbull in the Yale School 
of Fine Arts, New Haven 

Mount Vernon 140 

From an old lithograph 

The " Athen/Eum Portrait " by Gilbert Stuart 148 

From the painting formerly belonging to the Boston Athenaeum, 
now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

The "Goodhue Portrait" 190 

From the drawing formerly owned by David Nichols, of Salem, 
and endorsed by Benjamin Goodhue, United States Senator for 
Massachusetts, 1796-1800, as "done in New York, 1790," and 
" acknowledged by all to be a very strong likeness." It is believed 
to have been drawn by Joseph Wright, 

Family Group at Mount Vernon, by Edward Savage 234 

From Savage's lithograph after his painting. 



ABBREVIATIONS 
OF TITLES FREQUENTLY REFERRED TO 

Channing = Edwa.rd Channing: History of the United States. New 

York: Macmillan Company, III, IV. 1912. 

Fiske=^ John Fiske: The Critical Period of American History, 

1783-1789. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1897. 

Ford = Worthington C. Ford: The Writings of George Washington. 

14 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1889-93. 
Ford ^^ Worthington C. Ford: George Washington. 2 vols. Paris: 
Goupil; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1900. 
Hapgood = Norman Hapgood: George Washington. New York: Mac- 
millan Company. 1901. 
7mng = Washington Irving: Life of George Washington. New 

York: G. P. Putnam. 1857, 
Lo(ige = Henry Cabot Lodge: George Washington. 2 vols. Ameri- 
can Statesman Series. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com- 
pany. 1889. 
Marshall = ]ohn Marshall: The Life of George Washington. 5 vols. 
Philadelphia. 1807. 
Sparks ^=] axed Sparks: The Life of George Washington. Boston. 
Wister = Owen Wister: The Seven Ages of Washington. New York; 
Macmillan Company. 1909. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



CHAPTER I 
ORIGINS AND YOUTH 

ZEALOUS biographers of George Washington 
have traced for him a most respectable, not 
to say distinguished, ancestry. They go back to the 
time of Queen Elizabeth, and find Washingtons then 
who were "gentlemen." A family of the name ex- 
isted in Northumberland and Durham, but modern 
investigation points to Sulgrave, in Northampton- 
shire, as the English home of his stock. Here was 
born, probably during the reign of Charles I, his 
great-grandfather, John Washington, who was a 
sea-going man, and' settled in Virginia in 1657. His 
eldest son, Lawrence, had three children — John, 
Augustine, and Mildred. Of these, Augustine mar- 
ried twice, and by his second wife, Mary Ball, whom 
he married on March 17, 1730, there were seven 
children — George, Betty, Samuel, John, Augustine, 
Charles, and Mildred. The family home in West- 
moreland County, nearly opposite Fredericksburg, 
was Washington's birthplace, and (February li. 



2 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Old Style) February 22, New Style, 1732, was the 
date. We hear little about his childhood, he being 
a wholesomely unprecocious boy. Rumors have it 
that George was coddled and even spoiled by his 
mother. He had very little formal education, math- 
ematics being the only subject in which he excelled, 
and that he learned chiefly by himself. But he lived 
abundantly an out-of-door life, hunting and fishing 
much, and playing on the plantation. His family, 
although not rich, lived in easy fashion, and ranked 
among the gentry. 

No Life of George Washington should fail to warn 
the reader at the start that the biographer labors 
under the disadvantage of having to counteract the 
errors and absurdities which the Reverend Mason 
L. Weems made current in the Life he published 
the year after Washington died. No one, not even 
Washington himself, could live down the reputation 
of a goody-goody prig with which the officious Scotch 
divine smothered him. The cherry-tree story has had 
few rivals in publicity and has probably done more 
than anything else to implant an instinctive con- 
tempt of its hero in the hearts of four generations of 
readers. "Why could n't George Washington lie?" 
was the comment of a little boy I knew. "Could n't 
he talk?" 

Weems pretended to an Intimacy at Mount Ver- 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 3 

non which it appears he never had. In " Blackwood's 
Magazine" John Neal said of the book, "Not one 
word of which we believe. It is full of ridiculous 
exaggerations." And yet neither this criticism nor 
any other stemmed the outpouring of editions of 
it which must now number more than seventy. 
Weems doubtless thought that he was helping God 
and doing good to Washington by his offensive and 
effusive support of rudimentary morals. 

Weems had been dead a dozen years when another 
enemy sprang up. This was the worthy Jared Sparks, 
an historian, a professor of history, who collected 
with much care the correspondence of George Wash- 
ington and edited it in a monumental work. Sparks, 
however, suffered under the delusion that some- 
thing other than fact can be the best substance of 
history. According to his tastes, many of Washing- 
ton's letters were not sufficiently dignified; they 
were too colloquial, they even let slip expressions 
which no man conscious that he was the model of 
propriety, the embodiment of the dignity of history, 
could have used. So Mr. Sparks without blushing 
went through Washington's letters and substituted 
for the originals words which he decided were more 
seemly. Again the public came to know George 
Washington, not by his own words, but by those at- 
tributed to him by an overzealous stylist-pedant. 



4 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Well might the Father of his Country pray to be de- 
livered from the parsons. 

One of the earliest records of Washington's youth 
is the copy, written in his beautiful, almost copper- 
plate hand, of "Rules of Civility & Decent Be- 
havior, In Company and Conversation." These 
maxims were taken from an English book called 
"The Young Man's Companion," by W. Mather. 
It had passed through thirteen editions and con- 
tained information upon many matters besides con- 
duct. Perhaps Washington copied the maxims as a 
school exercise ; perhaps he learned them by heart. 

They are for the most part the didactic aphorisms 
which greatly pleased our worthy ancestors during 
the middle of the eighteenth century and later. 
Some of the entries referred to simple matters of 
deportment: you must not turn your back on per- 
sons to whom you talk. Others touch morals rather 
than manners. One imagines that the parson or 
elderly uncles allowed themselves to bestow this 
indisputably correct advice upon the youths whom 
they were interested in. A boy brought up rigidly 
on these doctrines could hardly fail to become a prig 
unless he succeeded in following the last injunction 
of all: "Labor to keep alive in your heart, that little 
spark of celestial fire called conscience." 

When he was twelve years old, Washington's 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 5 

father died, and his older half-brother, Lawrence, who 
inherited the estate now known as Mount Vernon, 
became his guardian. Lawrence had married the 
daughter of a neighbor. Lord Fairfax, who owned one 
of the largest estates in Virginia. Fairfax and he had 
served in the Navy at Cartagena under Admiral 
Vernon, from whom the Washington manor took 
its name. The Lord wished to have his domain sur- 
veyed and he offered George the work of surveying 
it. George, then a sturdy lad of seventeen, accepted 
gladly, and for more than two years he carried it on. 
The Fairfax estate extended far into the west, be- 
yond the immediate tidewater district, beyond the 
fringe of sparsely settled clearings, into the wilder- 
ness itself. The effect of his experience as surveyor 
lasted throughout George Washington's life. His 
self-reliance and his courage never flagged. Some- 
times he went alone and passed weeks among the 
solitudes; sometimes he had a companion whom he 
had to care for as well as for himself. But besides 
the toughening of his character which this pioneer 
life assured him, he got much information, which 
greatly influenced, years later, his views on the de- 
velopment, not only of Virginia, but of the North- 
west. Perhaps from this time there entered into his 
heart the conviction that the strongest bond of union 
must sometime bind together the various colonies, 



6 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

so different In resources and in interests, including 
his native commonwealth. 

From journals kept during some of his expeditions 
we see that he was a clear observer and an accurate 
reporter; far from bookish, but a careful penman, 
and conscious of the obligation laid upon him to ac- 
quire at least the minimum of polite knowledge 
which was expected of a country gentleman such as 
he aspired to be. 

Here is an extract in which he describes the 
squalid conditions under which he passed some of 
his life as a woodsman and surveyor. 

We got our suppers and was lighted into a Room and 
I not being so good a woodsman as ye rest of my com- 
pany, striped myself very orderly and went into ye Bed, 
as they calld it, when to my surprize, I found it to be 
nothing but a little straw matted together without 
sheets or any thing else, but only one thread bare blan- 
ket with double its weight of vermin, such as Lice, 
Fleas, etc. I was glad to get up (as soon as ye light was 
carried from us). I put on my cloths and lay as my 
companions. Had we not been very tired, I am sure we 
should not have slep'd much that night. I made a 
Promise not to sleep so from that time forward, chusing 
rather to sleep in ye open air before a fire, as will appear 
hereafter. 

Wednesday i6th. We set out early and finish'd about 
one o'clock and then Travelled up to Frederick Town, 
where our Baggage came to us. We cleaned ourselves 
(to get rid of ye game we had catched ye night before). 
I took a Review of ye Town and then return'd to our 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 7 

Lodgings where we had a good Dinner prepared for us. 
Wine and Rum Punch in plenty, and a good Feather Bed 
with clean sheets, which was a very agreeable regale. 

The longest of Washington's early expeditions was 
the "Journey over the Mountains, began Fryday 
the nth of March 1747/8." The mountains were 
the AUeghanies, and the trip gave him a closer ac- 
quaintance than he had had with Indians in the 
wilds. On his return, he stayed with his half-brother, 
Lawrence, at Mount Vernon, or with Lord Fairfax, 
and enjoyed the country life common to the richer 
Virginians of the time. Towns which could provide 
an inn being few and far between, travellers sought 
hospitality in the homes of the well-to-do residents, 
and every one was in a way a neighbor of the other 
dwellers in his county. So both at Belvoir and at 
Mount Vernon, guests were frequent and broke the 
monotony and loneliness of their inmates. I think 
the reputation of gravity, which was fixed upon 
Washington in his mature years, has been projected 
back over his youth. The actual records are lacking, 
but such hints and surmises as we have do not war- 
rant our thinking of him as a self-centred, unsociable 
youth. On the contrary, he was rather, what would 
be called now, a sport, ready for hunting or riding, 
of splendid physical build, agile and strong. He 
liked dancing, and was not too shy to enjoy the so- 



8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ciety of young women ; indeed, he wrote poems to some 
of them, and seems to have been popular with them. 
And still, the legend remains that he was bashful. 

From our earliest glimpses of him, Washington 
appears as a youth very particular as to his dress. 
He knew how to rough it as the extracts of his per- 
sonal journals which I have quoted show, and this 
passage confirms: 

I seem to be in a place where no real satisfaction is to 
be had. Since you received my letter in October last, 
I have not sleep'd above three or four nights in a bed, 
but, after walking a good deal all the day, I lay down 
before the fire upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or bear- 
skin, which ever is to be had, with man, wife, and chil- 
dren, like a parcel of dogs and cats, and happy is he who 
gets the berth nearest the fire. There's nothing would 
make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A dou- 
bloon is my constant gain every day that the weather 
will permit my going out, and sometimes six pistoles. 
The coldness of the weather will not allow of my making 
a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for this time 
of year. I have never had my clothes off but lay and 
sleep in them, except the few nights I have lay'n in 
Frederic Town.^ 

Later, when Washington became master of Mount 
Vernon, his servants were properly liveried. He him- 
self rode to hounds in the approved apparel of a fox- 
hunting British gentleman, and we find in the lists 
of articles for which he sends to London the names 
* Hapgood, p. II. 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 9 

of clothes and other articles for Mrs. Washington 
and the children carefully specified with the word 
"fashionable" or "very best quality" added. Still 
later, when he was President he attended to this 
matter of dress with even greater punctilio. 

One incident of this early period should not be 
passed by unmentioned. Admiral Vernon offered 
him an appointment as midshipman in the navy, 
but Washington's mother objected so strongly that 
Washington gave up the opportunity. We may well 
wonder whether, if he had accepted it, his career 
might not have been permanently turned aside. 
Had he served ten or a dozen years in the navy, he 
might have grown to be so loyal to the King, that, 
when the Revolution came, he would have been 
found in command of one of the King's men-of-war, 
ordered to put down the Rebels in Boston, or in New 
York. Thus Fate suggests amazing alternatives to 
us in the retrospect, but in the actual living, Fate 
makes it clear that the only course which could have 
happened was that which did happen. 

In 1 75 1 the health of Washington's brother, Law- 
rence, became so bad from consumption that he 
decided to pass the winter in a warm climate. He 
chose the Island of Barbados, and his brother George 
accompanied him. Shortly before sailing, George 
was commissioned one of the Adjutants-General of 



10 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Virginia, with the rankof Major, and the pay of £150 
a year. They sailed on the Potomac River, perhaps 
near Mount Vernon, on September 28, 1751, and 
landed at Bridgetown on November 3d. The next 
day they were entertained at breakfast and dinner 
by Major Clark, the British officer who commanded 
some of the fortifications of the island. ''We went," 
says George Washington, in a journal he kept, 
"myself with some reluctance, as the smallpox was 
in his family." Thirteen days later, George fell ill of 
a very strong case of smallpox which kept him 
housed for six weeks and left his face much dis- 
figured for life with pock marks, a fact which, so 
far as I have observed his portraits, the painters 
have carefully forgotten to indicate. 

The brothers passed a fairly pleasant month and 
a half at the Barbados. Major Clark, and other 
gentlemen and officials of the island, showed them 
much attention. They enjoyed the hospitality of 
the Beefsteak and Tripe Club, which seems to have 
been the fashionable club. On one occasion, Wash- 
ington was taken to the play to see the "Tragedy of 
George Barnwell." This may have been the first 
time that he went to the theatre. He refers to it in 
his journal with his habitual caution: 

Was treated with a play ticket by Mr. Carter to see 
the Tragedy of George Barnwell acted : the character of 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH ii 

Barnwell and several others was said to be well per- 
form 'd there was Musick a Dap ted and regularly con- 
ducted by Mr. 

But Lawrence Washington's consumption did not 
improve: he grew homesick and pined for his wife 
and for Mount Vernon. The physicians had recom- 
mended him to spend a full year at Barbados, in 
order to give the climate and the regimen there a 
fair trial, but he could not endure it longer, and, 
with his brother George's approval, he set sail for 
Virginia, on the twenty-second of December, 1751. 
On the fourth day of the following March, George 
reached his brother Augustine's at Wakefield. Even 
from his much-mutilated journal, we can see that he 
travelled with his eyes open, and that his interests 
were many. As he mentioned in his journal thirty 
persons with whom he became acquainted at the 
Barbados, we infer that in spite of bashfulness he 
was an easy mixer. This short journey to the Bar- 
bados marks the only occasion on which George 
Washington went outside of the borders of the 
American Colonies, which became later, chiefly 
through his genius, the United States. ^ 

In July, 1752, Lawrence Washington died of the 
disease which he had long struggled against. He 

* J. M. Toner: The Daily Journal of Major George Washington in 
1751-2 (Albany, N.Y., 1892). 



12 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

left his fortune and his property, including Mount 
Vernon, to his daughter, Mildred, and he appointed 
his brother, George, her guardian. She was a sweet- 
natured girl, but very frail, who died before long, 
probably of the same disease which had carried her 
father off, and, until its infectious nature was under- 
stood, used to decimate families from generation to 
generation. 

To have thrust upon him, at the age of twenty, 
the management of a large estate might seem a 
heavy burden for any young man; but George Wash- 
ington was equal to the task, and it seems as if much 
of his career up to that time was a direct preparation 
for it. He knew every foot of its fields and meadows, 
of its woodlands and streams; he knew where each 
crop grew, and its rotation; he had taken great in- 
terest in horses and cattle, and in the methods for 
maintaining and improving their breed; and now, of 
course being master, his power of choosing good men 
to do the work was put to the test. But he had not 
been long at these new occupations before public 
duties drew him away from them. 

Though they knew it not, the European set- 
tlers in North America were approaching a life-and- 
death catastrophe. From the days when the English 
and the French first settled on the continent. Fate 
ordained for them an irrepressible conflict. Should 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 13 

France prevail? Should England prevail? With the 
growth of their colonies, both the English and the 
French felt their rivalry sharpened. Although dis- 
tances often very broad kept them apart in space, 
yet both nations were ready to prove the terrible 
truth that when two men, or two tribes, wish to 
fight each other, they will find out a way. The 
French, at New Orleans, might be far away from the 
English at Boston; and the English, in New York, 
or in Philadelphia, might be removed from the 
French in Quebec; but in their hatreds they were 
near neighbors. The French pushed westward along 
the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes, and from 
Lake Erie, they pushed southward, across the rich 
plains of Ohio, to the Ohio River. Their trails spread 
still farther into the Western wilderness. They set 
up trading-posts in the very region which the Eng- 
lish settlers expected to occupy in the due process of 
their advance. At the junction of the Monongahela 
and Ohio Rivers, they planted Fort Duquesne, 
which not only commanded the approach to the ter- 
ritory through which the Ohio flowed westward, 
but served notice on the English that the French 
regarded themselves as the rightful claimants of 
that territory. 

In 1753 Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, had sent 
a commissioner to warn the French to cease from en- 



14 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

croaching on the lands in the Ohio wilderness which 
belonged to the King of England, but the messenger 
stopped one hundred and fifty miles short of his goal. 
Therefore, the Governor decided to despatch an- 
other envoy. He selected George Washington, who 
was already well known for his surveying, and for 
his expedition beyond the mountains, and doubtless 
had the backing of the Fairfaxes and other influential 
gentlemen. Washington set out on the same day he 
received his appointment from Governor Dinwiddle 
(October 31, 1753), engaged Jacob Van Braam, a 
Hollander who had taught him fencing, to be his 
French interpreter; and Christopher Gist, the best 
guide through the Virginia wilderness, to pilot the 
party. In spite of the wintry conditions which beset 
them, they made good time. Washington presented 
his official warning to M. Joncaire, the principal 
French commander in the region under dispute, but 
he replied that he must wait for orders from the 
Governor in Quebec. One object of Washington's 
mission was to win over, if possible, the Indians, 
whose friendship for either the French or the Eng- 
lish depended wholly on self-interest. He seems to 
have been most successful in securing the friend- 
ship of Thanacarishon, the great Seneca Chief, 
known as the Half-King. This native left it as his 
opinion that 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 15 

the colonel was a good-natured man, but had no experi- 
ence; he took upon him to command the Indians as his 
slaves, and would have them every day upon the scout 
and to attack the enemy by themselves, but would by 
no means take advice from the Indians. He lay in one 
place from one full moon to the other, without making 
any fortifications, except that little thing on the mea- 
dow, whereas, had he taken advice, and built such for- 
tifications as I advised him, he might easily have beat 
off the French. But the French in the engagement acted 
hke cowards, and the English like fools. ^ 

Believing that he could accomplish no more at 
that time, Washington retraced his steps and re- 
turned to Williamsburg. 

Governor Dinwiddle, being much disappointed 
with the outcome of the expedition, urged the Vir- 
ginian Legislature to equip another party sufficiently 
strong to be able to capture Fort Duquesne, and to 
confirm the British control of the Ohio. The Bur- 
gesses, however, pleaded economy, and refused to 
grant funds adequate to this purpose. Nevertheless, 
the Governor having equipped a small troop, under 
the command of Colonel Fry, with Washington as 
second, hurried it forth. During May and June they 
were near the Forks, and with the approach of dan- 
ger, Washington's spirit and recklessness increased. 
In a slight skirmish, M. de Jumonville, the French 
commander, was killed. Fry died of disease and 

* Quoted by Lodge, i, 74. 



i6 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Washington took his place as commander. Perceiv- 
ing that his own position was precarious, and expect- 
ing an attack by a large force of the enemy, he en- 
trenched himself near Great Meadows in a hastily 
built fort, which he called Fort Necessity, and 
thought it possible to defend, even with his own small 
force, against five hundred French and Indians. 
He miscalculated, however. The enemy exceeded 
in numbers all his expectations. His own resources 
dwindled; and so he took the decision of a practical 
man and surrendered the fort, on condition that he 
and his men be allowed to march out with the 
honors of war. They returned to Virginia with little 
delay. 

The Burgesses and the people of the State, though 
chagrined, did not take so gloomy a view of the col- 
lapse of the expedition as Washington himself did. 
His own depression equalled his previous exaltation. 
As he thought over the affairs of the past half-year 
in the quiet of Mount Vernon, the feeling which he 
had had from the start, that the expedition had not 
been properly planned, or directed, or reenforced in 
men and supplies, was confirmed. Governor Din- 
widdle's notion that raw volunteers would suffice to 
overcome trained soldiers had been proved a delusion. 
The inadequate pay and provisions of the officers 
irritated Washington, not only because they were 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 17 

insufficient, but also because they fell far short of 
those of the English regulars. 

In his penetrating Biography of Washington, 
Senator Lodge regards his conduct of the campaign, 
which ended in the surrender of Great Meadows, and 
his narrative as revealing Washington as a "pro- 
foundly silent man." Carlyle, Senator Lodge says, 
who preached the doctrine of silence, brushed Wash- 
ington aside as a "bloodless Cromwell," "failing 
utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent 
of the great men of action that the world can show." 
Let us admit the justice of the strictures on Carlyle, 
but let us ask whether Washington's letters at this 
time spring from a * ' silent ' ' man. He writes with per- 
fect openness to Governor Dinwiddle ; complains of the 
military system under which the troops are paid and 
the campaign is managed ; he repeatedly condemns 
the discrimination against the Virginian soldiers in 
favor of the British regulars; and he points out that 
instead of attempting to win the popularity of the 
Virginians, they are badly treated. Their rations are 
poor, and he reminds the Governor that a continuous 
diet of salt pork and water does not inspire enthusi- 
asm in either the stomach or the spirit. No wonder 
that the officers talk of resigning. "For my own 
part I can answer, I have a constitution hardy 
enough to encounter and undergo the most severe 



i8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

trials, and, I flatter myself, resolution to face what 
any man durst, as shall be proved when it comes to 
the test, which I believe we are on the borders of." 
In several other passages from letters at this time, 
we come upon sentiments which indicate that Wash- 
ington had at least a sufficiently high estimation of 
his own worth, and that his genius for silence had 
not yet curbed his tongue. There is the famous boast 
attributed to him by Horace Walpole. In a despatch 
which Washington sent back to the Governor after 
the little skirmish in which Jumonville was killed, 
Washington said : "'I heard the bullets whistle, and, 
believe me, there is something charming in the sound.' 
On hearing of this the King said sensibly, * he would 
not say so if he had been used to hear many.'" 
This reply of George II deserves to be recorded if 
only because it is one of the few feeble witticisms 
credited to the Hanoverian Kings. Years afterward, 
Washington declared that he did not remember ever 
having referred to the charm of listening to whistling 
bullets. Perhaps he never said it; perhaps he forgot. 
He was only twenty-two at the time of the Great 
Meadows campaign. No doubt he was as well aware 
as was Governor Dinwiddle, and other Virginians, 
that he was the best equipped man on the expedition, 
experienced in actual fighting, and this, added to his 
qualifications as a woodsman, had given him a real 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 19 

zest for battle. In their discussion over the camp- 
fire, he and his fellow officers must inevitably have 
criticized the conduct of the expedition, and it may 
well be that Washington sometimes insisted that if 
his advice were followed things would go better. 
Not on this account, therefore, must we lay too much 
blame on him for being conceited or immodest. He 
knew that he knew, and he did not dissemble the 

fact. Silence came later. 

The result of the expeditions to and skirmishes at 

the Forks of the Ohio was that England and France 
were at war, although they had not declared war on 
each other. A chance musket shot in the backwoods 
of Virginia started a conflict which reverberated in 
Europe, disturbed the peace of the world for seven 
years, and had serious consequences in the French 
and English colonies of North America. The news 
of Washington's disaster at Fort Necessity aroused 
the British Government to the conclusion that it 
must make a strong demonstration in order to crush 
the swelling prestige of the French rivals in America. 
The British planned, accordingly, to send out three 
expeditions, one against Fort Duquesne, another 
against the French in Nova Scotia, and a third 
against Quebec. The command of the first they gave 
to General Edward Braddock. He was then sixty 
years old, had been in the Regular Army all his life, 



20 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

had served in Holland, at L 'Orient, and at Gibral- 
tar, was a brave man, and an almost fanatical be- 
liever in the rules of war as taught in the manuals. 
During the latter half of 1754, Governor Dinwiddle 
was endeavoring against many obstacles to send an- 
other expedition, equipped by Virginia herself, to the 
Ohio. Only in the next spring, however, after Brad- 
dock had come over from England with a relatively 
large force of regulars, were the final preparations for 
a campaign actually made. Washington, in spite of 
being the commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, 
had his wish of going as a volunteer at his own ex- 
pense. He wrote his friend William Byrd, on April 
20, 1755, from Mount Vernon: 

I am now preparing for, and shall in a few days set off, 
to serve in the ensuing campaign, with different views, 
however, from those I had before. For here, if I can 
gain any credit, or if I am entitled to the least coun- 
tenance and esteem, it must be from serving my coun- 
try without fee or reward ; for I can truly say, I have no 
expectation of either. To merit its esteem, and the good 
will of my friends, is the sum of my ambition, having no 
prospect of attaining a commission, being well assured 
it is not in Gen'l Braddock's power to give such an one 
as I would accept of. The command of a Company is the 
highest commission vested in his gift. He was so oblig- 
ing as to desire my company this campaign, has hon- 
oured me with particular marks of his esteem, and 
kindly invited me into his family — a circumstance 
which will ease me of expences that otherwise must 
have accrued in furnishing stores, camp equipages, etc. 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 21 

Whereas the cost will now be easy (comparatively 
speaking), as baggage, horses, tents, and some other 
necessaries, will constitute the whole of the charge.' 

The army began to move about the middle of May, 
but it went very slowly. During June Washington 
was taken with an acute fever, in spite of which he 
pressed on, but he became so weak that he had to be 
carried in a cart, as he w^as unable to sit his horse. 
Braddock, with the main army, had gone on ahead, 
and Washington feared that the battle, which he 
believed imminent, would be fought before he came 
up with the front. But he rejoined the troops on 
July 8th. The next day they forded the Mononga- 
hela and proceeded to attack Fort Duquesne. Writ- 
ing from Fort Cumberland, on July i8th, Washing- 
ton gave Governor Dinwiddie the following account 
of Braddock's defeat. The one thing happened which 
Washington had felt anxious about — a surprise by 
the Indians. He had more than once warned Brad- 
dock of this danger, and Benjamin Franklin had 
warned him too before the expedition started, but 
Braddock, with perfect British contempt, had re- 
plied that though savages might be formidable to 
raw Colonials, they could make no impression on 
disciplined troops. The surprise came and thus Wash- 
ington reports it: 

* Ford, I, 148-49. 



22 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

When we came to this place, we were attacked (very 
unexpectedly) by about three hundred French and 
Indians. Our numbers consisted of about thirteen hun- 
dred well armed men, chiefly Regulars, who were im- 
mediately struck with such an inconceivable panick, 
that nothing but confusion and disobedience of orders 
prevailed among them. The officers, in general, behaved 
with incomparable bravery, for which they greatly suf- 
fered, there being near 60 killed and wounded — a large 
proportion, out of the number we had! 

The Virginia companies behaved like men and died 
like soldiers; for I believe out of three companies that 
were on the ground that day scarce thirty were left 
alive. Capt. Peyroney and all his officers, down to a 
corporal, were killed; Capt. Poison had almost as hard 
a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly 
behaviour of the Regular troops (so-called) exposed 
those who were inclined to do their duty to almost cer- 
tain death; and, at length, in despite of every effort to 
the contrary, broke and ran as sheep before hounds, 
leaving the artillery, ammunition, provisions, baggage, 
and, in short, everything a prey to the enemy. And when 
we endeavored to rally them, in hopes of regaining the 
ground and what we had left upon it, it was with as 
little success as if we had attempted to have stopped the 
wild bears of the mountains, or rivulets with our feet; 
for they would break by, in despite of every effort that 
could be made to prevent it. 

The General was wounded in the shoulder and breast, 
of which he died three days after; his two aids-de-camp 
were both wounded, but are in a fair way of recovery; 
Colo. Burton and Sr. John St. Clair are also wounded, 
and I hope will get over it; Sir Peter Halket, with many 
other brave officers, were killed in the field. It is sup- 
posed that we had three hundred or more killed ; about 
that number we brought off wounded, and it is con- 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 23 

jectured (I believe with much truth) that two thirds 
of both received their shot from our own cowardly 
Regulars, who gathered themselves into a body, con- 
trary to orders, ten or twelve deep, would then level, 
fire and shoot down the men before them.^ 

In this admirable letter Washington tells nothing 
about his own prowess in the battle, where he rode 
to all parts of the field, trying to stem the retreat, 
and had two horses shot under him and four bullet 
holes in his coat. He tried to get the troops to break 
ranks and to screen themselves behind rocks and 
trees, but Braddock, helpless without his rules, 
drove them back to regular formation with the flat 
of his sword, and made them an easy mark for the 
volleys of the enemy. Washington's personal valor 
could not fail to be admired, although his audacity 
exposed him to unjustified risks. 

On reaching Fort Cumberland he wrote to his 
brother John, on July i8th: 

As I have heard, since my arrival at this place, a cir- 
cumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I 
take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, 
and assuring you, that I have not as yet composed the 
latter. But, by the all-powerful dispensations of Provi- 
dence, I have been protected beyond all human proba- 
bility and expectation.^ 

The more he thought over the events of that day, 
the more was he amazed — "I join very heartily 
1 Ford, I, I73-74-75. ' IbU., 175-76. 



24 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

with you in believing," he wrote Robert Jackson on 
August 2d, "that when this story comes to be re- 
lated in future annals, it will meet with unbelief and 
indignation, for had I not been witness to the fact 
on that fatal day, I should scarce have given credit 
to it even now."^ 

Although Washington was thoroughly disgusted 
by the mismanagement of military affairs in Virginia, 
he was not ready to deny the appeals of patriotism. 
From Mount Vernon, on August 14, 1755, he wrote 
his mother: 

Honored Madam, If It is in my power to avoid going 
to the Ohio again, I shall; but If the command Is pressed 
upon me, by the general voice of the country, and offered 
upon such terms as cannot be objected against, it would 
reflect dishonor upon me to refuse; and that, I am sure 
must or ought to give you greater uneasiness, than my 
going In an honorable command, for upon no other 
terms I will accept of it. At present I have no proposals 
made to me, nor have I any advice of such an intention, 
except from private hands. ^ 

Braddock's defeat put an end to campaigning in 
Virginia for some time. The consternation It caused, 
not only held the people of the sparse western set- 
tlements in alarm but agitated the tidewater towns 
and villages. The Burgesses and many of the in- 
habitants had not yet learned their lesson sufficiently 
to set about reorganizing their army system, but the 
» Ford, I, 177. 2 Ibid., 180-81. 



ORIGINS AND YOUTH 25 

Assembly partially recognized its obligation to the 
men who had fought by voting to them a small sum 
for losses during their previous service. Washington 
received £300, but his patriotic sense of duty kept 
him active. In the winter of 1758, however, owing 
to a very serious illness, he resigned from the army 
and returned to Mount Vernon to recuperate. 

During the long and tedious weeks of sickness and 
recovery, Washington doubtless had time to think 
over, to clarify in his mind, and to pass judgment 
on the events in which he had shared during the past 
six or seven years. From boyhood that was his 
habit. He must know the meaning of things. An 
event might be as fruitless as a shooting star unless 
he could trace the relations which tied it to what 
came before and after. Hence his deliberation which 
gave to his opinions the solidity of wisdom. Auda- 
cious he might be in battle, but perhaps what seems 
to us audacity seemed to him at the moment a 
higher prudence. If there were crises when the odds 
looked ten to one against him, he would take the 
chance. He knew the incalculable value of courage. 
His experiences with the British regulars and their 
officers left a deep impression on him and colored 
his own decisions in his campaigns against the 
British during the Revolutionary War. To genius 
nothing comes amiss, and by genius nothing is for- 



26 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

gotten. So we find that all that Washington saw 
and learned during his years of youth — his appren- 
ticeship as surveyor, his vicissitudes as pioneer, 
tasks as Indian fighter and as companion of the de- 
feated Braddock — all contributed to fit him for the 
supreme work for which Fate had created him and 
the ages had waited. 




CHAPTER II 

MARRIAGE. THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 

'AR is like the wind, nobody can tell into whose 
garden it may blow desolation. The French 
and Indian War, generally called now the Seven 
Years' War, beginning as a mere border altercation 
between the British and French backwoodsmen on 
the banks of the upper Ohio River, grew into a strug- 
gle which, by the year 1758, when Washington re- 
tired from his command of the Virginia Forces, 
spread over the world. A new statesman, one of the 
ablest ever born in England, came to control the 
English Government. William Pitt, soon created 
Earl of Chatham, saw that the British Empire had 
reached a crisis in its development. Incompetence, 
inertia, had blurred its prestige, and the little vic- 
tories which France, its chief enemy, had been win- 
ning against it piecemeal, were coming to be regarded 
as signs that the grandeur of Britain was passing. 
Pitt saw the gloomy situation, and the still gloomier 
future which it seemed to prophesy, but he saw also 
the remedy. W^ithin a few months, under his direc- 
tion, English troops were in every part of the world, 
and EngUsh ships of war were sailing every ocean, 



28 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

to recover the slipping elements and to solidify the 
British Empire. Just as Pitt was taking up his resi- 
dence at Downing Street, Robert Clive was winning 
the Battle of Plassey in India, which brought to 
England territory of untold wealth. Two years 
later James Wolfe, defeating the French commander, 
Montcalm, on the Plains of Abraham, added not 
only Quebec, but all Canada, to the British Crown, 
and ended French rivalry north of the Great Lakes. 
Victories like these, seemingly so casual, really as 
final and as unrevisable as Fate, might well cause 
Englishmen to suspect that Destiny itself worked 
with them, and that an Englishman could be trusted 
to endure through any difficulties to a triumphant 
conclusion. 

Beaten at every point where they met the British, 
the French, even after they had secured an alliance 
with Spain, which proved of little worth, were glad 
to make peace. On February lo, 1763, they signed 
the Treaty of Paris, which confirmed to the British 
nearly all their victories and left England the domi- 
nant Power in both hemispheres. The result of the 
war produced a marked effect on the people of the 
British Colonies in North America. "At no period 
of time," says Chief Justice Marshall, in his "Life 
of Washington," "was the attachment of the col- 
onists to the mother country more strong, or more 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 29 

general, than in 1763, when the definitive articles 
of the treaty which restored peace to Great Britain, 
France, and Spain, were signed." ^ But we who 
know the sequel perceive that the Seven Years' War 
not only strengthened the attachment between the 
Colonies and the Mother Country, but that it also 
made the Colonies aware of their common interests, 
and awakened among them mutual friendship, and 
in a very brief time their sense of unity prevailed 
over their temporary enthusiasm for England. 
George III, a monarch as headstrong as he was 
narrow, with insanity lurking in his mind, succeeded 
to the throne in 1760, and he seized the first oppor- 
tunity to get rid of his masterful Minister, William 
Pitt. He replaced him with the Earl of Bute, a 
Scotchman, and a man of ingenious parts, but with 
the incurable Tory habit of insisting that it was still 
midnight long after the sun was shining in the fore- 
noon of another day. 

Before the Treaty was signed and the world had be- 
gun to spin in a new groove, which optimists thought 
would stretch on forever, an equally serious change 
had come to the private life of George Washington. 
To the surprise of his friends, who had begun to 
doubt whether he would ever get married, he found 
his life's companion and married her without delay. 

^ Marshall: The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia, 1805, 
5 vols.), n, 68. 



30 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

The notion seems to have been popular during his 
Hfetime, and it certainly has continued to later days, 
that he was too bashful to feel easy in ladies' society. 
I find no evidence for this mistaken idea. Although 
little has been recorded of the intimacies of Wash- 
ington's 3^outh, there are indications of more than 
one "flame" and that he was not dull and stockish 
with the young women. As early as 1748, we hear of 
the Low-Land Beauty who had captivated him, and 
who is still to be identified. Even earlier, in his 
school days, he indulged in writing love verses. 
But we need not infer that they were inspired by 
living damsels or by the Muses. 

"Oh ye Gods why should my poor resistless Heart 
Stand to oppose thy might and power — 

"In deluding sleepings let my eyelids close 
That in an enraptured dream I may 
In a rapt lulling sleep and gentle repose 
Possess those joys denied by day." ^ 

Cavour said that it was easier for him to make 
Italy than to write a poem: Washington, who was 
also an honest man, and fully aware of his limitations, 
would probably have admitted that he could make 
the American Republic more easily than a love 
song. But he was susceptible to feminine charms, 
and we hear of Betsy Fauntleroy, and of a "Mrs. 
* Quoted by Wister, 39. 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 31 

iVleil," and on his return to Mount Vernon, after 
Braddock's defeat, he received the following round 
robin from some of the young ladies at Belvoir: 

Dear Sir, — After thanking Heaven for your safe 
return I must accuse you of great unkindness in refusing 
us the pleasure of seeing you this night. I do assure you 
nothing but our being satisfied that our company would 
be disagreeable should prevent us from trying if our legs 
would not carry us to Mount Vernon this night, but if 
you will not come to us tomorrow morning very early 
we shall be at ]\Iount Vernon. 

S[ally] Fairfax 
Ann Spearing 
Eliz'th Dent 

Apparently Washington's love affairs were known 
and talked about among his group. What promised 
to be the most serious of his experiences was with 
Mary Philipse, of New York, daughter of Frederick 
Philipse, one of the richest landowners in that Col- 
ony, and sister-in-law of Beverly Robinson, one of 
Washington's Virginian friends. Washington was 
going to Boston on a characteristic errand. One of 
the minor officers in the Regular British Army, 
which had accompanied Braddock to Virginia, re- 
fused to take orders from Washington, and officers 
of higher grade in Virginia Troops, declaring that 
their commissions were assigned only by Colonial 
officials, whereas he had his own from King George. 
This led, of course, to insubordination and frequent 



32 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

quarrels. To put a stop to the wrangling, Washing- 
ton journeyed to Boston, to have Governor Shirley, 
the Commander-in-Chief of the King's Forces in the 
Colonies, give a decision upon it. The Governor 
ruled in favor of Washington, who then rode back to 
Virginia. But he spent a week in New York City in 
order to see his enchantress, Mary Philipse, and it 
is even whispered that he proposed to her and that 
she refused him. Two years afterwards she married 
Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Morris, and during the 
Revolution the Morris house was Washington's head- 
quarters; the Morrises, who were Tories, having fled. 
Persons have speculated why it was that so many 
of the young women whom Washington took a 
fancy to, chilled and drew back when it came to the 
question of marriage. One very clever writer thinks 
that perhaps his nose was inordinately large in his 
youth, and that that repelled them. I do not pretend 
to say. So far as I know, psychologists have not yet 
made a sufficiently exact study of the nose as a 
determining factor in matrimony, to warrant an 
opinion from persons who have made no special 
study of the subject. The plain fact was that by his 
twenty-fifth year, Washington was an unusually 
presentable young man, more than six feet tall, 
broad-shouldered, very strong, slender and athletic, 
carefully polite in his manners, a boon companion. 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 33 

though he talked Httle, a sound and dehberate 
thinker; moreover, the part he had taken in the 
war with the Indians and the French made him 
almost a popular hero, and gave him a preeminent 
place among the Virginians, both the young and the 
old, of that time. The possession of the estate of 
Mount Vernon, which he had inherited from his 
half-brother, Lawrence, assured to him more than a 
comfortable fortune, and yet gossip wondered why 
he was not married. Thackeray intimates that 
Washington was too evidently on the lookout for a 
rich wife, which, if true, may account for some of 
the alleged rebuffs. I do not believe this assertion, 
nor do I find evidence for it. Washington was always 
a very careful, farseeing person, and no doubt had a 
clear idea of what constitutes desirable qualifications 
in marriage, but I believe he would have married a 
poor girl out of the workhouse if he had really loved 
her. However, he was not put to that test. 

One May day Washington rode off from Mount 
Vernon to carry despatches to Williamsburg. He 
stopped at William's Ferry for dinner with his friend 
Major Chamberlayne. At the table was Mrs. Daniel 
Parke Custis, who, under her maiden name of Mar- 
tha Dandridge, was well known throughout that 
region for her beauty and sweet disposition. She 
was now a widow of twenty-six, with two small 



34 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

children. Her late husband, Colonel Custis, her 
elder by fifteen years, had left her a large estate 
called White House, and a fortune which made her 
one of the richest women in Virginia. From their 
first introduction, Washington and she seemed to 
be mutually attracted. He lingered throughout the 
afternoon and evening with her and went on to 
Williamsburg with his despatches the next morning. 
Having finished his business at the Capitol, he re- 
turned to William's Ferry, where he again saw Mrs 
Custis, pressed his suit upon her and was accepted 
Characteristic was it that he should conclude the 
matter so suddenly; but he had had marriage in his 
intentions for many years. 

During the summer Washington returned to his 
military duties and led a troop to Fort Duquesne. 
He found the fort partly demolished, and abandoned 
by the French; he marched in and took it, and gave it 
the name of Fort Pitt, in recognition of the great 
statesman who had directed the revival of British 
prestige. The fort, thus recovered to English pos- 
session, stood on the present site of Pittsburgh. I 
quote the following brief letter from Washington to 
Mrs. Custis, as it is almost the only note of his to her 
during their engagement that has been preserved: 

We have begun our March for the Ohio. A courier is 
starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportu- 




0^y\^f^ A^ 




4 



Bv Gilbert Stuart 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 35 

nity to send a few words to one whose life is now insep- 
arable from mine. Since that happy hour when we made 
our pledges to each other, my thoughts have been con- 
tinually going to you as another Self. That an all power- 
ful Providence may keep us both in safety is the prayer 
of your ever faithful and affectionate friend.^ 

Late in that autumn Washington returned for good 
from his Western fighting. On January 6, 1759 (Old 
Style), his marriage to Mrs. Custis took place in St. 
Peter's Church, near her home at the White House. 
Judging from the fine writing which old historians and 
new have devoted to describing it, Virginia had seen 
few such elegant pageants as upon that- occasion. 
The grandees in official station and in social life were 
all there. Francis Fauquier was, of course, gorgeous 
in his Governor's robes but he could not outshine 
the bridegroom, in blue and silver with scarlet trim- 
mings, and gold buckles at his knees, with his im- 
perial physique and carriage. The Reverend Peter 
Mossum conducted the Episcopal service, after 
which the bride drove back with a coach and six 
to the White House, while Washington, with other 
gentlemen, rode on horseback beside her acting as 
escort. 

The bridal couple spent two or three months at the 
White House. The Custis estates were large and in 
so much need of oversight that if Washington had 
^ P. L. Ford, The True George Washington, 93. 



36 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

not appeared at this time, a bailiff, or manager, would 
have had to be hired for them. Henceforth Washing- 
ton seems to have added the care of the White House 
to that of Mount Vernon, and the two involved a 
burden which occupied most of his time, for he had 
retired from the army. His fellow citizens, however, 
had elected him a member of the House of Burgesses, 
a position he held for many years; going to Williams- 
burg every season to attend the sessions of the As- 
sembly. On his first entrance to take his seat, Mr. 
Robinson, the Speaker, welcomed him in Virginia's 
name, and praised him for his high achievements. 
This so embarrassed the modest young member that 
he was unable to reply, upon which Speaker Robin- 
son said, "Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty 
is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power 
of any language that I possess." In all his life, prob- 
ably, Washington never heard praise more genuine 
or more deserved. He had just passed his twenty- 
seventh year. In the House of Burgesses he had the 
reputation of being the silent member. He never ac- 
quired the art of a debater. He was neither quick at 
rebuttal nor at repartee, but so surely did his char- 
acter impress itself on every one that when he spoke 
the Assembly almost took it for granted that he had 
said the final word on the subject under discussion. 
How careful he was to observe the scope and effects 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 37 

of parliamentary speaking appears from a letter 
which he wrote many years later. 

Agriculture has always been a particularly fine 
training-ground for statesmen. To persons who do 
not watch ic closely, it may seem monotonous. In 
reality, while the sum of the conditions of one year 
tally closely with those of another, the daily changes 
and variations create a variety which must be con- 
stantly watched and provided for. A sudden freshet 
and unseasonable access of heat or cold, a scourge of 
hail, a drought, a murrain among the cattle, call for 
ingenuity and for resourcefulness; and for courage, 
a higher moral quality. Constant comradeship with 
Nature seems to beget placidity and quiet assurance. 
From using the great natural forces which bring to 
pass crops and the seasons, they seem to work in and 
through him also. The banker, the broker, even the 
merchant, lives in a series of whirlwinds, or seems to 
be pursuing a mirage or groping his way through a 
fog. The farmer, although he be not beyond the 
range of accident, deals more continually with causes 
which regularly produce certain effects. He knows a 
rainbow by sight and does not waste his time and 
money in chasing it. 

No better idea of Washington's activity as a 
planter can be had than from his brief and terse 
journals as an agriculturist. He sets down day by 



38 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

day what he did and what his slaves and the free 
employees did on all parts of his estate. We see him 
as a regular and punctual man. He had a moral re- 
pugnance to idleness. He himself worked steadily 
and he chided the incompetent, the shirkers, and the 
lazy. 

A short experience as landowner convinced him 
that slave labor was the least efficient of all. This 
conviction led him very early to believe in the eman- 
cipation of the slaves. I do not find that sentiment 
or abstract ideals moved him to favor emancipation, 
but his sense of fitness, his aversion to wastefulness 
and inefficiency made him disapprove of a system 
which rendered industr>' on a high plane impossible. 
Experience only confirmed these convictions of his, 
and in his will he ordered that many slaves should be 
freed after the death of Mrs. Washington. He was 
careful to apportion to his slaves the amount of food 
they needed in order to keep in health and to work 
the required stint. He employed a doctor to look 
after them in sickness. He provided clothing for 
them which he deemed sufficient. I do not gather 
that he ever regarded the black man as being essen- 
tially made of the same clay as the white man, the 
chief difference being the color of their skin. To 
Washington, the Slave System seemed bad, not so 
much because it represented a debased moral stand- 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 39 

ard, but because it was economically and socially 
inadequate. His true character appears in his mak- 
ing the best of a system which he recognized as most 
faulty. Under his management, in a few years, his 
estate at Mount Vernon became the model of that 
kind of plantation in the South. 

Whoever desires to understand Washington's life 
as a planter should read his diaries with their brief, 
and one might almost say brusque, entries from day to 
day.^ Washington's care involved not only bringing 
the Mount Vernon estate to the highest point of pros- 
perity by improving the productiveness of its va- 
rious sections, but also by buying and annexing new 
pieces of land. To such a planter as he was, the 
ideal was to raise enough food to supply all the per- 
sons who lived or worked on the place, and this he 
succeeded in doing. His chief source of income, which 
provided him with ready money, was the tobacco 
crop, which proved to be of uncertain value. By 
Washington's time the Virginians had much dimin- 
ished the amount and delicacy of the tobacco they 
raised by the careless methods they employed. They 
paid little attention to the rotation of crops, or to 
manuring, with the result that the soil was never 
properly replenished. In his earlier days Washing- 

' See for instance in W. C. Ford's edition of The Writings of George 
Washington, u, 140-69. Diary for 1760, 230-56. Diary for 1768. 



40 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ton shipped his year's product to an agent in Glasgow 
or in London, who sold it at the market price and 
sent him the proceeds. The process of transporta- 
tion was sometimes precarious; a leaky ship might 
let in enough sea water to damage the tobacco, and 
there was always the risk of loss by shipwreck or 
other accident. Washington sent out to his brokers 
a list of things which he desired to pay for out of the 
proceeds of the sale, to be sent to him. These lists 
are most interesting, as they show us the sort of 
household utensils and furniture, the necessaries 
and the luxuries, and the apparel used in a mansion 
like Mount Vernon. We find that he even took care 
to order a fashionably dressed doll for little Martha 
Custis to play with. 

The care and education of little Martha and her 
brother, John Parke Custis, Washington undertook 
with characteristic thoroughness and solicitude. He 
had an instinct for training growing creatures. He 
liked to experiment in breeding horses and cattle 
and the farmyard animals. He watched the growth 
of his plantations of trees, and he was all the more 
interested in studying the development of mental 
and moral capacities in the little children. 

In due time a tutor was engaged, and besides the 
lessons they learned in their schoolbooks, they were 
taught both music and dancing. Little Patsy suf- 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 41 

fered from epilepsy, and after the prescriptions of 
the regular doctors had done no good, her parents 
turned to a quack named Evans, who placed on the 
child's finger an iron ring supposed to have miracu- 
lous virtues, but it brought her no relief, and very 
suddenly little Martha Custis died. Washington 
himself felt the loss of his unfortunate stepdaughter, 
but he was unflagging in trying to console the mother, 
heartbroken at the death of the child. 

Jack Custis was given in charge of the Reverend 
Jonathan Boucher, an Anglican clergyman, ap- 
parently well-meaning, who agreed with Washing- 
ton's general view that the boy's training "should 
make him fit for more useful purposes than horse- 
racing." In spite of Washington's carefully reasoned 
plans, the youth of the young man prevailed over the 
reason of his stepfather. Jack found dogs, horses, and 
guns, and consideration of dress more interesting and 
more important than his stepfather's theories of ed- 
ucation. Washington wrote to Parson Boucher, the 
teacher: 

Had he begun, or rather pursued his study of the 
Greek language, I should have thought it no bad acqui- 
sition; . . . To be acquainted with the French Tongue is 
become a part of polite education ; and to a man who has 
the prospect of mixing in a large circle, absolutely nec- 
essary. Without arithmetic, the common affairs of life 
are not to be managed with success. The study of Ge- 



42 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ometry, and the mathematics (with due regard to the 
limits of it) is equally advantageous. The principles of 
Philosophy, Moral, Natural, etc. I should think a very 
desirable knowledge for a gentleman.^ 

There was nothing abstract in young Jack Cus- 
tis's practical response to his stepfather's reasoning; 
he fell in love with Miss Nelly Calvert and asked her 
to marry him. Washington was forced to plead with 
the young lady that the youth was too young for 
marriage by several years, and that he must finish 
his education. Apparently she acquiesced without 
making a scene. She accepted a postponement of the 
engagement, and Custis was enrolled among the 
students of King's College (subsequently Columbia) 
in New York City. Even then, his passion for an edu- 
cation did not develop as his parents hoped. He 
left the college in the course of a few months. 
Throughout John Custis's perversities, and as long 
as he lived, Washington's kindness and real affec- 
tion never wavered. Although he had now taught 
himself to practice complete self-control, he could 
treat with consideration the young who had it not. 

By nature Washington was a man of business. He 

wished to see things grow, not so much for the actual 

increase in value which that indicated, as because 

increase seemed to be a proof of proper methods. 

^ W. C. Ford, George Washington (1900), i, 136-37. 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 43 

Not content, therefore, with rounding out his hold- 
ings at Mount Vernon and Mrs. Washington's es- 
tate at the White House, he sought investment in 
the unsettled lands on the Ohio and in Florida, and 
on the Mississippi. It proved to be a long time be- 
fore the advance of settlement in the latter regions 
made his investments worth much, and during the 
decade after his marriage in 1759, we must think of 
him as a man of great energy and calm judgment 
who was bent not only on making Mount Vernon a 
model country place on the outside, but a civilized 
home within. In its furnishings and appointments it 
did not fall behind the manors of the Virginia men 
of fashion and of wealth in that part of the country. 
Before Washington left the army, he recognized that 
his education had been irregular and inadequate, 
and he set himself to make good his defects by study- 
ing and reading for himself. There were no public 
libraries, but some of the gentlemen made collec- 
tions of books. They learned of new publications in 
England from journals which were few in number 
and incomplete. Doubtless advertising went by 
word of mouth. The lists of things desired which 
Washington sent out to his agents, Robert Cary and 
Company, once a year or oftener, usually contained 
the titles of many books, chiefly on architecture, and 
he was especially intent on keeping up with new 



44 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

methods and experiments in farming. Thus, among 
the orders in May, 1759, among a request for "Des- 
ert Glasses and Stand for Sweetmeats Jellies, etc.; 
50 lbs. Spirma Citi Candles; stockings etc.," he 
asks for "the newest and most approved Treatise of 
Agriculture — besides this, send me a Small piece 
in Octavo — called a New System of Agriculture, 
or a Speedy Way to Grow Rich; Longley's Book of 
Gardening; Gibson upon Horses, the latest Edition 
in Quarto." This same invoice contains directions 
for "the Busts" — one of Alexander the Great, an- 
other of Charles XII, of Sweden, and a fourth of the 
King of Prussia (Frederick the Great) ; also of Prince 
Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, but "some- 
what smaller." Do these celebrities represent Wash- 
ington's heroes in 1759? 

As time went on, his commissions for books were 
less restricted to agriculture, and comprised also 
works on history, biography, and government. 

But although incessant activity devoted to various 
kinds of work was a characteristic of Washington's 
life at Mount Vernon, his attention to social duties 
and pleasures was hardly less important. He aimed 
to be a country gentleman of influence, and he knew 
that he could achieve this only by doing his share of 
the bountiful hospitality which was expected of such 
a personage. Virginia at that time possessed no 



THE LIFE OF A PLANTER 45 

large cities or towns with hotels. When the gentry 
travelled, they put up overnight at the houses of 
other gentry, and thus, in spite of very restricted 
means of transportation, the inhabitants of one part 
of the country exchanged ideas with those of another. 
In this way also the members of the upper class circu- 
lated among themselves and acquired a solidarity 
which otherwise would hardly have been possible. 
We are told that Mount Vernon was always full of 
guests; some of these being casual strangers trav- 
elling through, and others being invited friends and 
acquaintances on a visit. There were frequent 
balls and parties when neighbors from far and near 
joined in some entertainment at the great mansion. 
There were the hunt balls which Washington him- 
self particularly enjoyed, hunting being his favorite 
sport. Fairfax County, where Mount Vernon lay, 
and its neighboring counties, Fauquier and Prince 
William, abounded in foxes, and the land was not too 
difficult for the hunters, who copied as far as possible 
the dress and customs of the foxhunters in England. 
Possibly there might be a meeting at Mount Vernon 
of the local politicians. At least once a year Wash- 
ington and his wife — "Lady," as the somewhat 
florid Virginians called her — went off to Williams- 
burg to attend the session of the House of Burgesses. 
Washington seldom missed going to the horse-races, 



46 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

one of the chief functions of the year, not only for 
jockeys and sporting men, but for the fashionable 
world of the aristocracy. Thanks to his carefulness 
and honesty in keeping his accounts, we have his 
own record of the amounts he spent at cards — never 
large amounts, nor indicative of the gamester's 
passion. 

Thus Washington passed the first ten years of his 
married life. A stranger meeting him at that time 
might have little suspected that here was the future 
founder of a nation, one who would prove himself the 
greatest of Americans, if not the greatest of men. 
But if you had spent a day with Washington, and 
watched him at work, or listened to his few but deci- 
sive words, or seen his benign but forcible smile, you 
would have said to yourself — "This man is equal 
to any fate that destiny may allot to him." 



CHAPTER III 
THE FIRST GUN 

MEANWHILE the course of events was leading 
toward a new and unexpected goal. Chief 
Justice Marshall said, as I have quoted, that 1763, 
the end of the French- Indian War, marked the great- 
est friendship and harmony between the Qolonies 
and England. The reason is plain. In their incessant 
struggles with the French and the Indians, the Col- 
onists had discovered a real champion and protector. 
That protector, England, had found that she must 
really protect the Colonies unless she was willing to 
see them fall into the hands of her rival, France. 
Putting forth her strength, she crushed France in 
America, and remained virtually in control not only 
of the Colonies and territory from the Atlantic to the 
Mississippi, but also of British America. In these 
respects the Colonies and the Mother Country 
seemed destined to be bound more closely together; 
but the very spirit by which Britain had conquered 
France in America, and France in India, and had 
made England paramount throughout the world, 
prevented the further fusion, moral, social, and po- 
litical, of the Colonies with the Mother Country. 



48 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

That spirit was the Imperial Spirit, which Plassey 
and Quebec had called to life. The narrow Hanove- 
rian King, who now ruled England, could not him- 
self have devised the British Empire, but when the 
Empire crystallized, George III rightly surmised 
that, however It had come about, It meant a large 
increase In power for him. The Colonies and De- 
pendencies were to be governed like conquered 
provinces. Evidently, the Hindus of Bengal could 
hardly be treated in the same fashion as were the 
Colonists of Massachusetts or Virginia. The Benga- 
lese knew that there was no bond of language or of 
race between them and their conquerors, whereas 
American Colonists knew that they and the British 
sprang from the same race and spoke the same lan- 
guage. One of the first realizations that came to the 
British Imperialists was that the ownership of the 
conquered people or state warranted the conquerors 
in enriching themselves from the conquered. But 
while this might do very well in India, and be ac- 
cepted there as a matter of course, it would be most 
ill-judged In the American Colonies, for the Colonists 
were not a foreign nor a conquered people. They 
originally held grants of land from the British Crown, 
but they had worked that land themselves and 
settled the wilderness by their own efforts, and had 
a right to whatever they might earn. 



THE FIRST GUN 49 

The Tory ideals, which took possession of the 
British Government when Lord Bute succeeded to 
WilHam Pitt in power, were soonappHed to England's 
relations to the American Colonies. The Seven 
Years' War left England heavily in debt. She needed 
larger revenues, and being now swayed by Imperial- 
ism, she easily found reasons for taxing the Colonies. 
In 1765 she passed the Stamp Act which caused so 
much bad feeling that in less than a year she decided 
to repeal it, but new duties on paper, glass, tea, and 
other commodities were imposed instead. In the 
North, Massachusetts took the lead in opposing 
what the Colonists regarded as the unconstitutional 
acts of the Crown. The patriotic lawyer of Boston, 
James Otis, shook the Colony with his eloquence 
against the illegal encroachments and actual tyranny 
of the English. Other popular orators of equal emi- 
nence, John and Samuel Adams and Josiah Quincy, 
fanned the flames of discontent. Even the most 
radical did not yet whisper the terrible word Revolu- 
tion, or suggest that they aspired to independence. 
They simply demanded their "rights" which the 
arrogant and testy British Tories had shattered and 
were withholding from them. At the outset rebels 
seldom admit that their rebellion aims at new ac- 
quisitions, but only at the recovery of the old. 

Next to Massachusetts, Virginia was the most 



50 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

vigorous of the Colonies in protesting against British 
usurpation of power, which would deprive them of 
their liberty. Although Virginia had no capital city 
like Boston, in which the chief political leaders might 
gather and discuss and plan, and mobs might as- 
semble and equip with physical force the impulses of 
popular indignation, the Old Dominion had means, 
just as the Highland clans or the Arab tribes had, of 
keeping in touch with each other. Patrick Henry, a 
young Virginia lawyer of sturdy Scotch descent, by 
his flaming eloquence was easily first among the 
spokesmen of the rights of the Colonists in Virginia. 
In the " Parsons Cause," a lawsuit which might have 
passed quickly into oblivion had he not seen the 
vital implications concerned in it, he denied the right 
of the King to veto an act of the Virginia Assembly, 
which had been passed for the good of the people 
of Virginia. In the course of the trial he declared, 
"Government was a conditional compact between 
the King, stipulating protection on the one hand, 
and the people, stipulating obedience and support 
on the other," and he asserted that a violation of 
these covenants by either party discharged the other 
party from its obligations. Doctrines as outspoken 
as these uttered in court, whether right or wrong, in- 
dicated that the attorney who uttered them, and 
the judge who listened, and the audience who ap- 



THE FIRST GUN 51 

plauded, were not blind worshippers of the illegal 
rapacity of the Crown. 

Patrick Henry was the most spectacular of the 
early champions of the Colonists in Virginia, but 
many others of them agreed with him. Among these 
the weightiest was the silent George Washington. 
He said little, but his opinions passed from mouth to 
mouth, and convinced many. In 1765 he wrote to 
Francis Dandridge, an uncle of Mrs. Washington: 

The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Par- 
liament of Great Britain, engrosses the conversation of 
the speculative part of the colonists, who look upon this 
unconstitutional method of taxation, as a direful attack 
upon their liberties, and loudly exclaim against the vio- 
lation. What may be the result of this, and of some 
other (I think I may add) ill-judged measures, I will not 
undertake to determine; but this I may venture to af- 
firm, that the advantage accruing to the mother coun- 
try will fall greatly short of the expectations of the min- 
istry; for certain it is, that an whole substance does 
already in a manner flow to Great Britain, and that 
whatsoever contributes to lessen our importations must 
be hurtful to their manufacturers. And the eyes of our 
people, already beginning to open, will perceive, that 
many luxuries, which we lavish our substance in Great 
Britain for, can well be dispensed with, whilst the neces- 
saries of life are (mostly) to be had within ourselves. 
This, consequently, will introduce frugality, and be a 
necessary stimulation to industry. If Great Britain, 
therefore, loads her manufacturles with heavy taxes, 
will It not facilitate these measures? They will not com- 
pel us, I think, to give our money for their exports, 



52 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

whether we will or not; and certain I am, none of their 
traders will part from them without a valuable consid- 
eration. Where then, is the utility of the restrictions? 
As to the Stamp Act, taken in a single view, one and 
the first bad consequence attending it, I take to be this, 
our courts of judicature must inevitably be shut up; for 
it is impossible, (or next of kin to it), under our present 
circumstances, that the act of Parliament can be com- 
plied with, were we ever so willing to enforce the execu- 
tion; for, not to say, which alone would be sufiicient, 
that we have not money to pay the stamps, there are 
many other cogent reasons, to prevent it; and if a stop 
be put to our judicial proceedings, I fancy the merchants 
of Great Britain, trading to the colonies, will not be 
among the last to wish for a repeal of it.^ 

This passage would suffice, were there not many 
similar which might be quoted, to prove that Wash- 
ington was from the start a loyal American. A legend 
which circulated during his lifetime, and must have 
been fabricated by his enemies, for I find no evidence 
to support it either in his letters or in other trust- 
worthy testimony, insinuated that he was British at 
heart and threw his lot in with the Colonists only 
when war could not be averted. In 1770 the mer- 
chants of Philadelphia drew up an agreement in 
which they pledged themselves to practise non-im- 
portation of British goods sent to America. Wash- 
ington's wise neighbor and friend, George Mason, 
drafted a plan of association of similar purport to be 
* Ford, II, 209-10. 



THE FIRST GUN 53 

laid before the Virginia Burgesses. But Lord Bote- 
tourt, the new Royal Governor, deemed some of 
these resolutions dangerous to the prerogative of the 
King, and dissolved the Assembly. The Burgesses, 
however, met at Anthony Hay's house and adopted 
Mason's Association. Washington, who was one of 
the signers of the Association, wrote to his agents in 
London: " I am fully determined to adhere religiously 
to it." 

Five years had now elapsed since the British To- 
ries attempted to fix on the Colonies the Stamp Act, 
and although they had withdrawn that hateful law, 
the relations between the Mother Country and the 
Colonists had not improved. Far from it. The 
English issued a series of irritating provisions which 
convinced the Colonists that the Government had 
no real desire to be friendly, and that, on the con- 
trary, it intended to make no distinction between 
them and the other conquered provinces of the 
Crown. Then and always, the English forgot that 
the Colonists were men of their own stock, equally 
stubborn in their devotion to principles, and prob- 
ably more accessible to scruples of conscience. So 
they were not likely to be frightened into subjection. 
The governing class in England was in a state of 
mind which has darkened its judgment more than 
once; the state of mind which, when it encounters an 



54 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

obstacle to its plans, regards that obstacle as an 
enemy, and remarks in language brutally frank, 
though not wholly elegant: "We will lick him first 
and then decide who is right." In 1770 King George 
III, who fretted at all seasons at the slowness with 
which he was able to break down the ascendency of 
the Whigs, manipulated the Government so as to 
make Lord North Prime Minister. Lord North was 
a servant, one might say a lackey, after the King's 
own heart. He abandoned lifelong traditions, prin- 
ciples, fleeting whims, prejudices even, in order to 
keep up with the King's wish of the moment. After 
Lord North became Prime Minister, the likelihood 
of a peaceful settlement between the crown and the 
Colonies lessened. He ran ahead of the King in his 
desire to serve the King's wishes, and George III, 
by this time, was wrought up by the persistent 
tenacity of the Whigs — he wished them dead, but 
they would not die — and he was angered by the in- 
solence of the Colonists who showed that they would 
not shrink from forcibly resisting the King's com- 
mand. On both sides of the Atlantic a vehement and 
most enlightening debate over constitutional and 
legal fundamentals still went on. Although the King 
had packed Parliament, not all the oratory poured 
out at Westminster favored the King. On the con- 
trary, the three chief masters of British eloquence 



THE FIRST GUN 55 

at that time, and in all time — Edmund Burke, 
William Pitt, and Charles James Fox — spoke on 
the side of the Colonists. Reading the magnificent 
arguments of Burke to-day, we ask ourselves how 
any group in Parliament could have withstood them. 
But there comes a moment in every vital discussion 
when arguments and logic fail to convince. Pas- 
sions deeper than logic controlled motives and ac- 
tions. The Colonists contended that in proclaiming 
"no taxation without representation," they were 
appealing to a principle of Anglo-Saxon liberty in- 
herent in their race. When King George, or any one 
else, denied this principle, he denied an essential 
without which Anglo-Saxon polity could not sur- 
vive, but neither King George nor Lord North ac- 
cepted the premises. If they had condescended to 
reply at all, they might have sung the hymn of their 
successors a hundred years later: 

"We don't want to fight, 
But by jingo! if we do, 
We've got the men, we've got the ships, 
We've got the money too." 

Meanwhile, the Virginia Planter watched the 
course of events, pursued his daily business regularly, 
attended the House of Burgesses when it was in 
session, said little, but thought much. He did not 
break out into invective or patriotic appeals. No 



56 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

doubt many of his acquaintances thought him luke- 
warm in spirit and non-committal; but persons who 
knew him well knew what his decision must be. 
As early as April 5, 1769, he wrote his friend, 
George Mason: 

At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain 
will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation 
of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that 
something should be done to avert the stroke, and main- 
tain the liberty, which we have derived from our ances- 
tors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose 
effectually, is the point in question. 

That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to 
use a — ms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which 
all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. 
Yet a — ms, I would beg leave to add, should be the last 
resource, the dernier resort. Addresses to the throne, 
and remonstrances to Parliament, we have already, it 
is said, proved the inefficiency of. How far, then, their 
attention to our rights and privileges is to be awakened 
or alarmed, by starving their trade and manufacturers, 
remains to be tried. ^ 

Thus wrote the Silent Member six years before 
the outbreak of hostilities, and he did not then dis- 
play any doubt either of his patriotism, or of the 
course which every patriot must take. To his inti- 
mates he spoke with point-blank candor. Years 
later, George Mason wrote to him: 

I never forgot your declaration, when I had last the 
pleasure of being at your house in 1768, that you were 

^ Ford, II, 263-64. 



THE FIRST GUN 57 

ready to take your musket upon your shoulder whenever 
your country called upon you. 

Some writers point out that Washington excelled 
rather as a critic of concrete plans than of constitu- 
tional and legal aspects. Perhaps this is true. As- 
suredly he had no formal legal training. There were 
many other men in Massachusetts, in Virginia, and 
in some of the other Colonies, who could and did 
analyze minutely the Colonists' protest against tax- 
ation without representation, and the British re- 
buttal thereof; but Washington's strength lay in his 
primal wisdom, the wisdom which is based not on 
conventions, even though they be laws and consti- 
tutions, but on a knowledge of the ways in which 
men will react toward each other in their primitive, 
natural relations. In this respect he was one of the 
wisest among the statesmen. 

He does not seem to have joined in such clandes- 
tine methods as those of the Committees of Corre- 
spondence, which Samuel Adams and some of the 
most radical patriots in the Bay State had organized, 
but he said in the Virginia Convention, in 1774: "I 
will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own 
expense and march myself at their head for the re- 
lief of Boston." ^ The ardor of Washington's offer 
matched the increasing anger of the Colonists. Lord 
* John Adams's Diary, August 31, 1774, quoting Lynch. 



58 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

North, abetted by the British Parliament, had con- 
tinued to exasperate them by passing new bills which 
could have produced under the best circumstances 
only a comparatively small revenue. One of these 
imposed a tax on tea. The Colonists not only refused 
to buy it, but to have it landed. In Boston a large 
crowd gathered and listened to much fiery speech- 
making. Suddenly, a body of fifty men disguised as 
Mohawk Indians rushed down to the wharves, rowed 
out to the three vessels in which a large consignment 
of tea had been sent across the ocean, hoisted it out 
of the holds to the decks and scattered the contents 
of three hundred and forty chests in Boston Harbor. 
The Boston Tea Party was as sensational as if it 
had sprung from the brain of a Paris Jacobin in the 
French Revolution. It created excitement among 
the American Colonists from Portsmouth to Charles- 
ton. Six more of the Colonies enrolled Committees 
of Correspondence, Pennsylvania alone refusing to 
join. In every quarter American patriots felt ex- 
alted. In England the reverse effects were signalized 
with equal vehemence. The Mock Indians were 
denounced as incendiaries, and the town meetings 
were condemned as "nurseries of sedition." Parlia- 
ment passed four penal laws, the first of which pun- 
ished Boston by transferring its port to Salem and 
closing its harbor. The second law suspended the 



THE FIRST GUN 59 

charter of the Province and added several new and 
tyrannical powers to the British Governor and to 
Crown officials. 

On September 5, 1774, the first Continental Con- 
gress met in Philadelphia. Except Georgia, every 
Colony sent delegates to it. The election of those 
delegates was in several cases irregular, because the 
body which chose them was not the Legislature but 
some temporary body of the patriots. Nevertheless, 
the Congress numbered some of the men who were 
actually and have remained in history, the great 
engineers of the American Revolution. Samuel 
Adams and John Adams went from Massachusetts; 
John Jay and Robert R. Livingston from New York; 
Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth from Connec- 
ticut; Alexander Hamilton and Thomas McKean 
from Pennsylvania; George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, and Thomas Jefferson, and the Pendletons 
and Randolphs from Virginia; and the Rutledges and 
Pinckneys from South Carolina. Although the Con- 
gress was made up of these men and of others like 
them, the petitions adopted by it and the work done, 
not to mention the freshets of oratory, were aston- 
ishingly mild. Probably many of the delegates would 
have preferred to use fiery tongues. Samuel Adams, 
for instance, though "prematurely gray, palsied in 
hand, and trembling in voice," must have had dif- 



6o GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ficulty In restraining himself. He wrote as viciously 
as he spoke. "Damn that Adams," said one of his 
enemies. "Every dip of his pen stings like a horned 
snake." Patrick Henry, being asked when he re- 
turned home, " Who is the greatest man in Congress," 
replied: "If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge 
of South Carolina is by far the greatest orator; but 
if you speak of solid information and sound judg- 
ment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the 
greatest man on that floor." The rumor had it that 
Washington said, he wished to God the Liberties 
of America were to be determined by a single Com- 
bat between himself and George. One other saying 
of his at this time is worth reporting, although it 
cannot be satisfactorily verified. ^^ More blood will 
be spilled on this occasion, if the ministry are deter- 
mined to push matters to extremity, than history has 
ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North 
America." The language and tone of the "Summary 
View" — a pamphlet which Thomas Jefferson had 
issued shortly before — probably chimed with the 
emotions of most of the delegates. They adopted 
(October 14, 1774) the "Declaration of Rights," 
which may not have seemed belligerent enough for 
the Radicals, but really leaves little unsaid. A week 
later Congress agreed to an "Association," an in- 
strument for regulating, by preventing, trade with 




COLONEL GEORGE WASHINGTON 
By Charles Willson Peale. 1772 



THE FIRST GUN 6i 

the English. Having provided for the assembling of 
a second Congress, the first adjourned. 

As a symbol, the First Congress has an integral 
importance in the growth of American Independence. 
It marked the first time that the American Colonies 
had acted together for their collective interests. It 
served notice on King George and Lord North that 
it repudiated the claims of the British Parliament to 
govern the Colonies. It implied that it would repel 
by force every attempt of the British to exercise an 
authority which the Colonists refused to recognize. 
In a very real sense the Congress thus delivered an 
ultimatum. The winter of 1774/5 saw preparations 
being pushed on both sides. General Thomas Gage, 
the British Commander-in-Chief stationed at Bos- 
ton, had also thrust upon him the civil government 
of that town. He had some five thousand British 
troops in Boston, and several men-of-war in the 
harbor. There were no overt acts, but the speed with 
which, on more than one occasion, large bodies of 
Colonial farmers assembled and went swingiiig 
through the country to rescue some place, which it 
was falsely reported the British wer-e attacking, 
showed the nervous tension under which the Ameri- 
cans were living. As the enthusiasm of the Patriots 
increased, that of the Loyalists increased also. 
Among the latter were many of the rich and aristo- 



62 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

era tic Inhabitants, and, of course, most of the office- 
holders. Until the actual outbreak of hostilities they 
upheld the King's cause with more chivalry than 
discretion, and then they migrated to Nova Scotia 
and to England, and bore the penalty of confiscation 
and the corroding distress of exile. In England dur- 
ing this winter, Pitt and Burke had defended the Col- 
onies and the Whig minority had supported them. 
Even Lord North used conciliatory suggestions, but 
with him conciliation meant that the Colonies should 
withdraw all their offensive demands and kneel be- 
fore the Crown in penitent humiliation before a new 
understanding could be thought of. 

Meanwhile Colonel Washington was in Virginia 
running his plantations to the best of his ability and 
with his mind made up. He wrote to his friend 
Bryan Fairfax (July 20, 1774): 

As I see nothing, on the one hand, to Induce a belief 
that the Parliament would embrace a favorable oppor- 
tunity of repealing acts, which they go on with great 
rapidity to pass, and in order to enforce their tyrannical 
system ; and on the other, I observe, or think I observe, 
that government is pursuing a regular plan at the ex- 
pense of law and justice to overthrow our constitutional 
rights and liberties, how can I expect any redress from a 
measure, which has been ineffectually tried already? 
For, Sir, what is it we are contending against? Is it 
against paying the duty of three pence per pound on 
tea because burthensome? No, it is the right only, we 
have all along disputed, and to this end we have already 



THE FIRST GUN 63 

petitioned his Majesty in as humble and dutiful manner 
as subjects could do.^ . . . 

And has not General Gage's conduct since his arrival, 
(in stopping the address of his Council, and publishing a 
proclamation more becoming a Turkish bashaw, than an 
English governor, declaring it treason to associate in any 
manner by which the commerce of Great Britain is to 
be affected) exhibited an unexampled testimony of the 
most despotic system of tyranny, that ever was prac- 
tised in a free government? In short, what further 
proofs are wanted to satisfy one of the designs of the 
ministry, than their own acts, which are uniform and 
plainly tending to the same point, nay, if I mistake not, 
avowedly to fix the right of taxation? What hope then 
from petitioning, when they tell us, that now or never 
is the time to fix the matter? Shall we after this, whine 
and cry for relief, when we have already tried it in vain? 
Or shall we supinely sit and see one province after an- 
other fall a prey to despotism? ^ 

In the early autumn Washington wrote to Cap- 
tain Robert MacKenzie, who was serving in the 
Regular British Army with Gage at Boston: 

I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not the 
wish or intent of that government, (Massachusetts) or 
any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, 
to set up for independence; but this you may at the 
same time rely on, that none of them will ever submit to 
the loss of these valuable rights and privileges, which are 
essential to the happiness of every free state, and with- 
out which, life, liberty, and property are rendered to- 
tally insecure.' 

In the following spring the battles of Lexington 

^ Ford, II, 421-22. ' Ibid., 423-24. » Ibid., 443, 



64 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

and Concord, on April 19th, began the war of the 
American Revolution. A few weeks later, a Second 
Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. The 
delegates to it, understanding that they must pre- 
pare for war, proceeded to elect a Commander-in- 
Chief. There was some jealousy between the men of 
Virginia and those of Massachusetts. The former 
seemed to think that the latter assumed the first 
position, and indeed, most of the angry gestures had 
been made in Boston, and Boston had been the 
special object of British punishment. Still, with 
what may seem unexpected self-effacement, they 
did not press strongly for the choice of a Massachu- 
setts man as Commander-in-Chief. On June 15, 
1775, Congress having resolved "that a general be 
appointed to command all the continental forces 
raised or to be raised for the defence of American 
libert}^" proceeded to a choice, and the ballots being 
taken, George Washington, Esq., was unanimously 
elected. On the next day the President of the 
Congress, Mr. John Hancock, formally announced 
the election to Colonel Washington, who replied: 

Mr. President, though I am truly sensible of the high 
honor done me in this appointment, yet I feel great dis- 
tress from a consciousness that my abilities and mili- 
tary experience may not be equal to the extensive and 
important trust. However, as the Congress desire it, I 
will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every 



THE FIRST GUN 65 

power I possess in the service and for the support of the 
glorious cause. I beg they will accept my most cordial 
thanks for this distinguished testimony of their appro- 
bation. But lest some unlucky event should happen 
unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remem- 
bered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day 
declare with the utmost sincerity I do not think my- 
self equal to the command I am honored with. 

As to pay. Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that 
as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me 
to accept this arduous employment at the expense of 
my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make 
any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my 
expenses. Those I doubt not they will discharge, and 
that is all I desire.^ 

Accompanied by Lee and Schuyler and a brilliant 
escort, he set forth on June 21st for Boston. Before 
they had gone twenty miles a messenger bringing 
news of the Battle of Bunker Hill crossed them. 
"Did the Militia fight?" Washington asked. On 
being told that they did, he said: "Then the liber- 
ties of the country are safe." Then he pushed on, 
stopping long enough in New York to appoint Gen- 
eral Schuyler military commander of that Colony, 
and so through Connecticut to the old Bay State. 
There, at Cambridge, he found the crowd awaiting 
him and some of the Colonial troops. On the edge 
of the Common, under a large elm tree broad of 
spread, he took command of the first American 
army. It was the second of July, 1775. 
^ Ford, n, 477-78-79, 480-8 1. 



CHAPTER IV 
BOSTON FREED 

THUS began what seems to us now an impos- 
sible war. Although it had been brooding for 
ten years, since the Stamp Act, which showed that 
the ties of blood and of tradition meant nothing to 
the British Tories, now that it had come, the Col- 
onists may well have asked themselves what it meant. 
Probably, if the Colonists had taken a poll on that 
fine July morning in 1775, not one in five of them 
would have admitted that he was going to war to 
secure Independence, but all would have protested 
that they would die if need be to recover their free- 
dom, the old British freedom, which came down to 
them from Runnymede and should not be wrested 
from them. 

A British Tory, at the same time, might have re- 
plied: "We fight, we cannot do less, in order to disci- 
pline and punish these wretches who assume to deny 
the jurisdiction of the British Crown and to rebel 
against the authority of the British Parliament." 
A few years before, an English general had boasted 
that with an army of five thousand troops he would 
undertake a march from Canada, through the Col- 
onies, straight to the Gulf of Mexico. And Colonel 



BOSTON FREED 67 

George Washington,- who had seen something of the 
quahty of the British regulars, remarked that with 
a thousand seasoned Virginians he would engage to 
block the five thousand wherever he met tnem. The 
test was now to be made. 

The first thing that strikes us is the great extent 
of the field of war. From the farthest settlements in 
the northeast, in what is now Maine, to the border 
villages in Georgia was about fifteen hundred miles ; 
but mere distance did not represent the difificulty 
of the journey. Between Boston and Baltimore ran 
a carriage road, not always kept in good repair. 
Most of the other stretches had to be traversed on 
horseback. The country along the seaboard was 
generally well supplied with food, but the supply 
was nowhere near large enough to furnish regular 
permanent subsistence for an army. A lack of muni- 
tions seriously threatened the Colonists' ability to 
fight at all, but the discovery of lead in Virginia 
made good this deficiency until the ^ear 1781, when 
the lead mine was exhausted. 

More important than material concerns, however, 
was the diversity in origin and customs among the 
Colonists themselves. The total population num- 
bered in 1775 nearly two and one half million souls. 
Of these, the slaves formed about 500,000. The 
three largest Colonies, Virginia, Massachusetts, and 



68 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Pennsylvania contained 900,000 inhabitants, of 
which a little more than one half were slaves. Penn- 
sylvania, the third Colony, had a total of 300,000, 
mostly white, while South Carolina had 200,000, of 
whom only 65,000 were white. Connecticut, on the 
other hand, had 200,000 with scarcely any blacks. 
The result was a very mottled population. The New 
Englanders had already begun to practise manu- 
facturing, and they continued to raise under normal 
conditions sufficient food for their subsistence. 
South of the Mason and Dixon line, however, slave 
labor prevailed and the three great staples — to- 
bacco, cotton, and rice — were the principal crops. 
Where these did not grow, the natives got along as 
best they could on scanty common crops, and by 
raising a few sheep and hogs. As the war proceeded, 
it taught with more and more force the inherent 
wastefulness of slave labor in the South. It was in- 
efficient, costly, and unreliable. 

The Battle of Bunker Hill was at once hailed as a 
Patriot victory, but the rejoicing was premature, for 
the Americans had been forced to retreat, giving up 
the position they had bravely defended. Neverthe- 
less, the opinion prevailed that they had won a real 
victory by withstanding through many hours of a 
bloody fight some of the best of the British regiments 
in North America. A fortnight later, when Wash- 



BOSTON FREED 69 

ington took command of the American army at 
Cambridge, he was faced with the great task of 
organizing it and of forming a plan of campaign. 
The Congress had taken over the charge of the army 
at Boston, and the events had so shaped themselves 
that the first thing for Washington to do was to 
drive out the British troops. To accomplish this he 
planned to seal up all the entrances into the town by 
land so that food could not be smuggled in. The 
British had a considerable fleet in Boston Harbor, 
and they had to rely upon it to bring provisions and 
to keep in touch with the world outside. 

Washington had his headquarters at the Craigie 
House in Cambridge, some half a mile from Harvard 
Square and the College. He was now forty-three 
years old, a man of commanding presence, six feet 
three inches tall, broad-shouldered but slender, 
without any signs of the stoutness of middle age. 
His hands and feet were large. His head was some- 
what small. The blue-gray eyes, set rather far 
apart, looked out from heavy eyebrows with an ex- 
pression of attentiveness. The most marked feature 
was the nose, which was fairly large and straight 
and vigorous. The mouth shut firmly, as it usually 
does where decision is the dominant trait. The lips 
were fiat. His color was pale but healthy, and rarely 
flushed, even under great provocation. 



70 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

All that had gone before seemed to be strangely 
blended in his appearance. The surveyor lad; the 
Indian fighter and officer; the planter; the foxhunter; 
the Burgess; you could detect them all. But under- 
lying them all was the permanent Washington, 
deferent, plain of speech, direct, yet slow in forming 
or expressing an opinion. Most men, after they had 
been with him awhile, felt a sense of his majesty 
grow upon them, a sense that he was made of com- 
mon flesh like them, but of something uncommon 
besides, something very high and very precious. 

Washington found that he had sixteen thousand 
troops under his command near Boston. Of these 
two thirds came from Massachusetts, and Connec- 
ticut halved the rest. During July Congress added 
three thousand men from Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
and Virginia. They lacked everything. In order to 
give them some uniformity in dress, Washington 
suggested hunting-shirts, which he said "would have 
a happier tendency to unite the men and abolish those 
Provincial Distinctions which lead to jealousy and 
dissatisfaction." Among higher officers, jealousy, 
which they made no attempt to dissemble or to dis- 
guise, was common. Two of the highest posts went 
to Englishmen who proved themselves not only 
technically unfit, but suspiciously near disloyalty. 
One of these was Charles Lee, who thought the 



BOSTON FREED 71 

major-generalship to which Congress appointed him 
beneath his notice; the other was also an English- 
man, Horatio Gates, Adjutant-General. A third, 
Thomas, when about to retire in pique, received 
from Washington the following rebuke: 

In the usual contests of empire and ambition, the 
conscience of a soldier has so little share, that he may 
very properly insist upon his claims of rank, and extend 
his pretensions even to punctilio; — but in such a cause 
as this, when the object is neither glory nor extent of 
territory, but a defense of all that is dear and valuable 
in private and public life, surely every post ought to be 
deemed honorable in which a man can serve his coun- 
try. ^ 

Besides the complaints which reached Washington 
from all sides, he had also to listen to the advice of 
military amateurs. Some of these had never been 
in a battle and knew nothing about warfare except 
from reading, but they were not on this account the 
most taciturn. Many urged strongly that an ex- 
pedition be sent against Canada, a design which 
Washington opposed. His wisdom was justified 
when Richard Montgomery, with about fifteen 
hundred men, took Montreal — November 12, 1775 
— and after waiting several weeks formed a junction 
with Benedict Arnold near Quebec, which they at- 
tacked in a blinding snowstorm, December 31, 1775. 

* Ford, George Washington, I, 175. 



72 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Arnold had marched up the Kennebec River and 
through the Maine wilderness with fifteen hundred 
men, which were reduced to five hundred before they 
came into action with Montgomery's much dwindled 
force. The commander of Quebec repulsed them and 
sent them flying southward as fast as the rigors of 
the winter and the difficulties of the wilderness per- 
mitted. 

By the end of July, meanwhile, Washington had 
brought something like order into the undisciplined 
and untrained masses who formed his army, but now 
another lack threatened him : a lack of gunpowder. 
The cartridge boxes of his soldiers contained on an 
average only nine charges of ball and gunpowder 
apiece, hardly enough to engage in battle for more 
than ten minutes. Washington sent an urgent appeal 
to every town, and hearing that a ship at Bermuda had 
a cargo of gunpowder, American ships were des- 
patched thither to secure it. In such straits did 
the army of the United Colonies go forth to war. 
By avoiding battles and other causes for using 
munitions, they not only kept their original sup- 
ply, but added to it as fast as their appeals were 
listened to. Washington kept his lines around Bos- 
ton firm. In the autumn General Gage was replaced, 
as British Commander-in-Chief, by Sir William 
Howe, whose brother Richard, Lord Howe, became 



BOSTON FREED 73 

Admiral of the Fleet. But the Howes knew no way 
to break the strangle hold of the Americans. How 
Washington contrived to create the impression that 
he was master of the situation is one of the myster- 
ies of his campaigning, because, although he had 
succeeded in making soldiers of the raw recruits and 
in enforcing subordination, they were still a very 
skittish body. They enlisted for short terms of serv- 
ice, and even before their term was completed, 
they began to hanker to go home. This caused not 
only inconvenience, but real difficulty. Still, Wash- 
ington steadily pushed on, and in March, 1776, by a 
brilliant manoeuvre at Dorchester Heights, he se- 
cured a position from which his cannons could bom- 
bard every British ship in Boston Harbor. On the 
17th of March all those ships, together with the 
garrison of eight thousand, and with two thousand 
fugitive Loyalists, sailed off to Halifax. Boston has 
been free from foreign enemies from that day to this. 



CHAPTER V 
TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 

HOWE'S retreat from Boston freed Massachu- 
setts and, indeed, all New England from Brit- 
ish troops. It also gave Washington the clue to his 
own next move. He was a real soldier and therefore 
his instinct told him that his next objective must 
be the enemy's army. Accordingly he prepared to 
move his own troops to New York. He passed 
through Providence, Norwich, and New London, 
reaching New York on April 13th. Congress was 
then sitting in Philadelphia and he was requested to 
visit it. 

He spent a fortnight during May in Philadelphia 
where he had conferences with men of all kinds and 
seems to have been particularly impressed, not to say 
shocked, by the lack of harmony which he discovered. 
The members of the Congress, although they were 
ostensibly devoting themselves to the common af- 
fairs of the United Colonies, were really intriguing 
each for the interests of his special colony or section. 
Washington thought this an ominous sign, as indeed 
it was, for since the moment when he joined the 
Revolution he threw ofl all local affiliation. He did 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 75 

his utmost to perform his duty, clinging as long as 
he could to the hope that there would be no final 
break with England. Throughout the winter, how- 
ever, from almost every part of the country the de- 
mands of the Colonists for independence became 
louder and more urgent and these he heard repeated 
and discussed during his visit to the Congress. On 
May 31st he wrote his brother John Augustine 
Washington : 

Things have come to that pass now, as to convince us, 
that we have nothing more to expect from the justice of 
Great Britain; also, that she is capable of the most de- 
lusive acts; for I am satisfied, that no commissioners 
ever were designed, except Hessians and other foreigners; 
and that the idea was only to deceive and throw us off 
our guard. The first has been too effectually accom- 
plished, as many members of Congress, in short, the 
representation of whole provinces, are still feeding 
themselves upon the dainty food of reconciliation ; and 
though they will not allow, that the expectation of it has 
any influence upon their judgment, (with respect to 
their preparations for defence,) it is but too obvious, 
that it has an operation upon every part of their con- 
duct, and is a clog to their proceedings. It is not in the 
nature of things to be otherwise; for no man, that en- 
tertains a hope of seeing this dispute speedily and equi- 
tably adjusted by commissioners, will go to the same 
expense and run the same hazards to prepare for the 
worst event, as he who believes that he must conquer, or 
submit to unconditional terms, and its concomitants, 
such as confiscation, hanging, etc. etc.^ 

* Ford, IV, 106. 



76 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

The Hessians to whom Washington alludes were 
German mercenaries hired by the King of England 
from two or three of the princelings of Germany. 
These Hessians turned a dishonest penny by fight- 
ing in behalf of a cause in which they took no im- 
mediate interest or even knew what it was about. 
During the course of the Revolution there were 
thirty thousand Hessians in the British armies in 
America, and, as their owners, the German prince- 
lings, received £5 apiece for them it was a profitable 
arrangement for those phlegmatic,^ corpulent, and 
braggart personages. The Americans complained 
that the Hessians were brutal and tricky fighters; 
but in reality they merely carried out the ideals of 
their German Fatherland which remained behind 
the rest of Europe in its ideals of what was fitting in 
war. Being uncivilized, they could not be expected 
to follow the practice of civilized warfare. 

When Washington returned to his headquarters 
in New York, he left the Congress in Philadelphia 
simmering over the question of Independence. Al- 
most simultaneously with Washington's return 
came the British fleet under Howe, which passed 
Sandy Hook and sailed up New York Harbor. He 
brought an army of twenty-five thousand men. 
Washington's force was nominally nineteen thou- 
sand men, but it was reduced to not more than ten 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE -^ 

thousand by the detachment of several thousand to 
guard Boston and of several thousand more to take 
part in the struggle in Canada, besides thirty-six hun- 
dred sick. The Colonists clung as if by obsession 
to their project of capturing Quebec. The death 
of Montgomery and the discomfiture of Benedict 
Arnold, which really gave a quietus to the success of 
the expedition, did not suffice to crush it. Only too 
evident was it that Quebec could be taken. Canada 
would fall permanently into American control, and 
cease to be a constant menace and the recruiting 
ground for new expeditions against the central 
Colonies. 

August was drawing to a close when the two 
armies were in a position to begin fighting. The 
British, who had originally camped upon Staten 
Island where Nature provided them with a shelter 
from attack, had now moved across the bay to Long 
Island. There General Sullivan, having lost eleven 
or twelve hundred men, was caught between two 
fires and compelled to surrender with the two thou- 
sand or more of his army which remained after the 
attack of the British. Washington watched the dis- 
aster from Brooklyn, but was unable to detach any 
regiments to bring aid to Sullivan, as it now became 
clear to him that his whole army on Long Island 
might easily be cut off. He decided to retreat from 



78 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

the island. This he did on August 29th, having com- 
mandeered every boat that he could find. He fer- 
ried his entire force across to the New York side 
with such secrecy and silence that the British did not 
notice that they were gone. A heavy fog, which set- 
tled over the water during the night, greatly aided 
the adventure. The result of the Battle of Long 
Island gave the British great exultation and cor- 
respondingly depressed the Americans. On the 
preceding fourth of July they had declared their 
Independence; they were no longer Colonies but 
independent States bound together by a common 
interest. They felt all the more keenly that in this 
first battle after their Independence they should be 
so ignominiously defeated. They might have taken 
much comfort in the thought that had Howe sur- 
prised them on their midnight retreat across the 
river, he might have captured most of the American 
army and probably have ended the war. Washing- 
ton's disaster sprang not from his incompetence, but 
from his inadequate resources. The British out- 
numbered him more than two to one and they had 
control of the water; an advantage which he could 
not offset. One important fact should not be for- 
gotten: New York, both City and State, had been 
notoriously Loyalist — that is, pro-British — ever 
since the troubles between the Colonists and the 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 79 

British grew angry. Governor Tryon, the Governor 
of the State, made no secret of his British prefer- 
ences; indeed, they were not preferences at all, but 
downright British acts. 

Having won the Battle of Long Island, Lord 
Howe thought the time favorable for acting in his 
capacity as a peacemaker, because he had come over 
with authority to negotiate a peaceful settlement 
of the Colonists' quarrel. He appealed, therefore, to 
the Congress of Philadelphia, which appointed a 
committee of three — Benjamin Franklin, John 
Adams, and Edward Rutledge to confer with Lord 
Howe. The conference, which exhibited the shrewd 
quality of John Adams and of Franklin, the polite- 
ness of Rutledge, and the studied urbanity of Lord 
Howe, simply showed that there was no common 
ground on which they could come to an agreement. 
The American Commissioners returned to Philadel- 
phia and Lord Howe to New York City and there 
were no further attempts at peacemaking. 

Having brought his men to New York, Washing- 
ton may well have debated what to do next. The 
general opinion seemed to be that New York must 
be defended at all costs. Whether Washington ap- 
proved of this plan, I find it hard to say. Perhaps he 
felt that if the American army could hold its own on 
Manhattan for several weeks, it would be put into 



8o GEORGE WASHINGTON 

better discipline and prepared either to risk a battle 
with the British, or to retreat across the Hudson 
toward New Jersey. He decided that for the moment 
at least he would station his army on the heights 
of Harlem. From the house of Colonel Morris, 
where he made his headquarters, he wrote on Sep- 
tember 4, 1776, to the President of the Congress: 
"We are now, as it were, upon the eve of another 
dissolution of our army." The term of service of 
most of the soldiers under Washington would ex- 
pire at the end of the year, and he devoted the greater 
part of the letter to showing up the evils of the mili- 
tary system existing in the American army. 

A soldier [he said] reasoned with upon the goodness 
of the cause he is engaged in, and the inestimable rights 
he is contending for, hears you with patience, and ac- 
knowledges the truth of your observations, but adds 
that it is of no more importance to him than to others. 
The officer makes you the same reply, with this further 
remark, that his pay will not support him and he can- 
not ruin himself and family to serve his country, when 
every member of the community is equally interested, 
and benefited by his labors. The few, therefore, who 
act upon principles of disinterestedness, comparatively 
speaking, are no more than a drop in the ocean. 

It becomes evident to me then, that, as this contest is 
not likely to be the work of a day, as the war must be 
carried on systematically, and to do it you must have 
good officers, there are in my judgment no other pos- 
sible means to obtain them but by establishing your 
army upon a permanent footing and giving your officers 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 8i 

good pay. This will induce gentlemen and men of char- 
acter to engage; and, till the bulk of your officers is com- 
posed of such persons as are actuated by principles of 
honor and a spirit of enterprise, you have little to ex- 
pect from them.^ 

Washington proceeds to argue that the soldiers 
ought not to be engaged for a shorter time than the 
duration of the war, that they ought to have better 
pay and the offer of a hundred or a hundred and 
fifty acres of land. Officers' pay should be increased 
in proportion. "Why a captain in the Continental 
service should receive no more than five shillings cur- 
rency per day for performing the same duties that 
an officer of the same rank in the British service 
receives ten shillings for, I never could conceive." 
He further speaks strongly against the employment 
of militia — "to place any dependence upon [it] 
is assuredly resting upon a broken staff." 

Washington wrote thus frankly to the Congress 
which seems to have read his doleful reports without 
really being stimulated, as it ought to have been, by 
a determination to remove their causes. Probably 
the delegates came to regard the jeremiads as a 
matter of course and assumed that Washington 
would pull through somehow. Very remarkable is 
it that the Commander-in-Chief of any army in such 
a struggle should have expressed himself as he did, 

^ Ford, IV, 440. 



82 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

bluntly, in regard to its glaring imperfections. Do- 
ing this, however, he managed to hold the loyalty 
and spirit of his men. In the American Civil War, 
McClellan contrived to infatuate his troops with 
the belief that his plans were perfect, and that only 
the annoying fact that the Confederate generals 
planned better caused him to be defeated ; and yet 
to his obsessed soldiers defeat under McClellan was 
more glorious than victory under Lee or Stonewall 
Jackson, I take it that Washington's frankness 
simply reflected his passion for veracity, which was 
the cornerstone of his character. The strangest fact 
of all was that it did not lessen his popularity or 
discourage his troops. 

To his intimates Washington wrote with even 
more unreserve. Thus he says to Lund Washington 
(30th September) ; 

In short, such is my situation that if I were to wish 
the bitterest curse to an enemy on this side of the grave, 
I should put him in my stead with my feelings; and yet 
I do not know what plan of conduct to pursue. I see 
the impossibility of serving with reputation, or doing 
any essential service to the cause by continuing in com- 
mand, and yet I am told that if I quit the command, in- 
evitable ruin will follow from the distraction that will 
ensue. In confidence I tell you that I never was in such 
an unhappy, divided state since I was born. To lose all 
comfort and happiness on the one hand, whilst I am 
fully persuaded that under such a system of manage- 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 83 

ment as has been adopted, I cannot have the least 
chance for reputation, nor those allowances made which 
the nature of the case requires; and to be told, on the 
other, that If I leave the service all will be lost, Is, at the 
same time that I am bereft of every peaceful moment, 
distressing to a degree. But I will be done with the sub- 
ject, with the precaution to you that it is not a fit one to 
be publicly known or discussed. If I fall, it may not be 
amiss that these circumstances be known, and declara- 
tion made in credit to the justice of my character. And 
if the men will stand by me (which by the by I despair 
of), I am resolved not to be forced from this ground 
while I have life; and a few days will determine the 
point, if the enemy should not change their place of 
operations; for they certainly will not — I am sure they 
ought not — to waste the season that is now fast ad- 
vancing, and must be precious to them.' 

The British troops almost succeeded in surround- 
ing Washington's force north of Harlem. Washing- 
ton retreated to White Plains, where, on October 
28th, the British, after a severe loss, took an outpost 
and won what is called the "Battle of White Plains." 
Henceforward Washington's movements resembled 
too painfully those of the proverbial toad under the 
harrow; and yet in spite of Lord Howe's efforts to 
crush him, he succeeded in escaping into New Jersey 
with a small remnant — some six thousand men — 
of his original army. The year 1776 thus closed in 
disaster which seemed to be irremediable. It showed 
that the British, having awakened to the magnitude 

^ Ford, IV, 458. 



84 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

of their task, were able to cope with it. Having a 
comparatively unlimited sea-power, they needed 
only to embark their regiments, with the neces- 
sary provisions and ammunition, on their ships and 
send them across the Atlantic, where they were more 
than a match for the nondescript, undisciplined, 
ill-equipped, and often badly nourished Americans. 
The fact that at the highest reckoning hardly a half 
of the American people were actively in favor of 
Independence, is too often forgotten. But from this 
fact there followed much lukewarmness and inertia 
in certain sections. Many persons had too little 
imagination or were too sordidly bound by their 
daily ties to care. As one planter put it: "My busi- 
ness is to raise tobacco, the rest does n't concern 
me." 

Over the generally level plains of New Jersey, 
George Washington pushed the remnant of the army 
that remained to him. He had now hardly five thou- 
sand men, but they were the best, most seasoned, 
and in many respects the hardiest fighters. In ad- 
dition to the usual responsibility of warfare, of feed- 
ing his troops, finding quarters for them, and of 
directing the line of march, he had to cope with whole- 
sale desertions and to make desperate efforts to 
raise money and to persuade some of those troops, 
whose term was expiring, to stay on. Plis general 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 85 

plan now was to come near enough to the British 
centre and to watch its movements. The British had 
fully twenty-five thousand men who could be cen- 
tred at a given point. This centre was now Trenton, 
and the objective of the British was so plainly 
Philadelphia that the Continental Congress, after 
voting to remain in permanence there, fled as quietly 
as possible to Baltimore. On December i8th Wash- 
ington wrote from the camp near the Falls of Tren- 
ton to John Augustine Washington: 

If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army 
with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty 
near up, owing, in great measure, to the insidious acts 
of the Enemy, and disaffection of the Colonies before 
mentioned, but principally to the accursed policy of 
short enlistments, and placing too great a dependence 
on the militia, the evil consequences of which were fore- 
told fifteen months ago, with a spirit almost Prophetic. 
. . . You can form no idea of the perplexity of my situ- 
ation. No man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of 
difficulties, and less means to extricate himself from 
them. However, under a full persuasion of the justice 
of our cause, I cannot entertain an idea that it will 
finally sink, though it may remain for some time under 
a cloud. ^ 

Washington stood with his forlorn little army on 
the west bank of the Delaware above Trenton. He 
had information that the British had stretched their 
Hne very far and thin to the east of the town. Sep- 

^ Ford, V, III. 



86 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

arating his forces into three bodies, he commanded 
one of these himself, and during the night of Christ- 
mas he crossed the river in boats. The night was 
stormy and the crossing was much interrupted by 
floating cakes of ice; in spite of which he landed his 
troops safely on the eastern shore. They had to 
march nine miles before they reached Trenton, 
taking Colonel Rail and his garrison of Hessians by 
surprise. More than a thousand surrendered and 
were quickly carried back over the river into captiv- 
ity. 

The prestige of the Battle of Trenton was enor- 
mous. For the first time in six months Washington 
had beaten the superior forces of the British and beat- 
en them in a fortified town of their own choosing. 
The result of the victory was not simply military; 
it quickly penetrated the population of New Jersey 
which had been exasperatingly Loyalist, had sold 
the British provisions, and abetted their intrigues. 
Now the New Jersey people suddenly bethought 
them that they might have chosen the wrong side 
after all. This feeling was deepened in them a week 
later when, at Princeton, Washington suddenly fell 
upon and routed several British regiments. By this 
success he cleared the upper parts of New Jersey of 
British troops, who were shut once more within the 
limits of New York City and Long Island. 




Copi/nghl by the Detroit Pvbli'-huKj ( i 

WASHINGTON AT THE BATTLE OF TRENTON 
By Colonel John Trumbull 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 87 

In January, 1777, no man could say that the 
turning-point in the American Revolution had been 
passed. There were still to come long months, 
and years even, of doubt and disillusion and 
suffering; the agony of Valley Forge; the igno- 
miny of betrayal; and the slowly gnawing pain of 
hope deferred. But the fact, if men could have but 
seen it, was clear — Trenton and Princeton were 
prophetic of the end. And what was even clearer was 
the supreme importance of George Washington. 
Had he been cut off after Princeton or had he been 
forced to retire through accident, the Revolution 
would have slackened, lost head and direction, and 
spent itself among thinly parcelled rivulets without 
strength to reach the sea. Washington was a Neces- 
sary Man. Without him the struggle would not then 
have continued. Sooner or later America would 
have broken free from England, but he was indis- 
pensable to the liberty and independence of the 
Colonies then. This thought brooded over him at all 
times, not to make him boastful or imperious, but 
to impress him with a deeper awe, and to impress 
also his men with the supreme importance of his life 
to them all. They grew restive when, at Princeton, 
forgetful of self, he faced a volley of muskets only 
thirty feet away. One of his officers wrote after the 
Trenton campaign: 



88 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Our army love their General very much, but they 
have one thing against him, which is the little care he 
takes of himself in any action. His personal bravery, and 
the desire he has of animating his troops by example, 
makes him fearless of danger. This occasions us much 
uneasiness. But Heaven, which has hitherto been his 
shield, I hope will still continue to guard so valuable a 
life.^ 

Robert Morris, who had already achieved a very 
important position among the Patriots of New York, 
wrote to Washington: 

Heaven, no doubt for the noblest purposes, has blessed 
you with a firmness of mind, steadiness of countenance, 
and patience in sufferings, that give you infinite advan- 
tages over other men. This being the case, you are not 
to depend on other people's exertions being equal to 
your own. One mind feeds and thrives on misfortunes 
by finding resources to get the better of them; another 
sinks under their weight, thinking it Impossible to re- 
sist; and, as the latter description probably Includes the 
majority of mankind, we must be cautious of alarming 
them. 

Washington doubtless thanked Morris for his 
kind advice about issuing reports which had some 
streaks of the rainbow and less truth in them. He 
did not easily give up his preference for truth. 

Common prudence [he said] dictates the necessity of 
duly attending to the circumstances of both armies, be- 
fore the style of conquerors is assumed by either; and 

* Hapgood, 171. 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 89 

I am sorry to add, that this does not appear to be the 
case with us; nor is it in my power to make Congress 
fully sensible of the real situation of our affairs, and that 
it is with difficulty (if I may use the expression) that I 
can, by every means in my power, keep the life and soul 
of this army together. In a word, when they are at a 
distance, they think it is but to say. Presto begone, and 
everything is done. They seem not to have any con- 
ception of the difficulty and perplexity attending those 
who are to execute. 

After the Battle of Princeton, Washington drew 
his men off to the Heights of Morristown where he 
established his winter quarters. The British had 
gone still farther toward New York City. Both sides 
seemed content to enjoy a comparative truce until 
spring should come with better weather; but true to 
his characteristic of being always preparing some- 
thing, Howe had several projects in view, any one 
of which might lead to important activity. If ever 
a war was fought at long range, that war was the 
American Revolution. Howe received his orders 
from the War Office in London. Every move was 
laid down; no allowance was made for the change 
which unforeseeable contingencies might render nec- 
essary; the young Under-Secretaries who carefully 
drew up the instructions in London knew little or 
nothing about the American field of operations and 
simply relied upon the fact that their callipers 
showed that it was so many miles between Point X 



90 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

and Point Y and that the distance should ordinarily 
be covered in so many hours. 

With Washington himself the case was hardly 
better. There were few motions that he could make 
of his own free will. He had to get authority from 
the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The 
Congress was not made up of military experts and 
in many cases it knew nothing about the questions 
he asked. The members of the Congress were talkers, 
not doers, and they sometimes lost themselves in 
endless debate and sometimes they seemed quite to 
forget the questions W^ashington put to them. We 
find him writing in December to beg them to reply 
to the urgent question which he had first asked in 
the preceding October. He was scrupulous not to 
take any step which might seem dictatorial. The 
Congress and the people of the country dreaded 
military despotism. That dread made them prefer 
the evil system of militia and the short-term enlist- 
ments to a properly organized standing army. To 
their fearful imagination the standing army would 
very quickly be followed by the man on horseback 
and by hopeless despotism. 

The Olympians in London who controlled the 
larger issues of war and peace whispered to the young 
gentlemen in the War Ofifice to draw up plans for 
the invasion, during the summer of 1777, of the 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 91 

lower Hudson by British troops from Canada. Gen- 
eral Burgoyne should march down and take Ticon- 
deroga and then proceed to Albany. There he 
could meet a smaller force under Colonel St. Leger 
coming from Oswego and following the Mohawk 
River. A third army under Sir William Howe could 
ascend the Hudson and meet Burgoyne and St. 
Leger at the general rendezvous — Albany. It was 
a brave plan, and when Burgoyne started with his 
force of eight thousand men high hopes flushed the 
British hearts. These hopes seemed to be confirmed 
when a month later Burgoyne took Ticonderoga. 
The Americans attributed great importance to this 
place, an importance which might have been justi- 
fied at an earlier time, but which was now really 
passed, and it proved of little value to Burgoyne. 
Pursuing his march southward, he found himself 
entangled in the forest and he failed to meet boats 
which were to ferry him over the streams. 

The military operations during the summer and 
autumn of 1777 might well cause the Americans to 
exult. The British plan of sending three armies to 
clear out the forces which guarded or blocked the 
road from Canada to the lower Hudson burst like a 
bubble. The chief contingent of 8000 men, under 
General Burgoyne, seems to have strayed from its 
route and to have been in need of food. Hearing that 



92 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

there were supplies at Bennington, Burgoyne turned 
aside to that place. He little suspected the mettle of 
John Stark and of his Green Mountain volunteers. 
Their quality was well represented by Stark's ad- 
dress to his men: "They are ours to-night, or Molly 
Stark is a widow." He did not boast. By nightfall 
he had captured all of Burgoyne's men who were 
alive (August i6, 1777). 

Only one reverse marred the victories of the sum- 
mer. This was at Oriskany in August, 1777. An 
American force of 400 or 500 men fell into an am- 
bush, and its leader, General Herkimer, though 
mortally wounded, refused to retire, but continued 
to give directions to the end. Oriskany was reputed 
to be the most atrocious fight of the Revolution. 
Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, led the Indians, 
who were allies of the English. 

In spite of this, Burgoyne seemed to lose resolu- 
tion, uncertain whither to turn. He instinctively 
groped for a way that would take him down the 
Hudson and bring him to Albany, where he was to 
meet British reinforcements. But he missed his 
bearings and found himself near Saratoga. Here 
General Gates confronted him with an army larger 
than his own in regulars. On October 7th they 
fought a battle, which the British technically 
claimed as a victory, as they were not driven from 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 93 

their position, but it left them virtually hemmed in 
without a line of escape. Burgoyne waited several 
days irresolute. He hoped that something favorable 
to him might turn up. He had a lurking hope that 
General Clinton was near by, coming to his rescue. 
He wavered, gallant though he was, and would not 
give the final order of desperation — to cut their 
way through the enemy lines. Instead of that he 
sought a truce with Gates, and signed the Conven- 
tion of Saratoga (October 17th), by which he sur- 
rendered his army with the honors of war, and it was 
stipulated that they should be sent to England by 
English ships and paroled against taking any further 
part in the war. 

The victory of Saratoga had much effect on Amer- 
ica; it reverberated through Europe. Only the pe- 
culiar nature of the fighting in America prevented it 
from being decisive. Washington himself had never 
dared to risk a battle which, if he were defeated in 
it, would render it impossible for him to continue 
the war. The British, on the other hand, spread 
over much ground, and the destruction of one of their 
armies would not necessarily involve the loss of all. 
So it was now; Burgoyne's surrender did little to re- 
lieve the pressure on Washington's troops on the 
Hudson, but it had a vital effect across the sea. 

Since the first year of the war the Americans had 



94 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

hoped to secure a formal alliance with France against 
England, and among the French who favored this 
scheme there were several persons of importance. 
Reasons were easily found to justify such an alliance. 
The Treaty of Paris in 1 763 had dispossessed France 
of her colonies in America and had left her inferior 
to England in other parts of the world. Here was 
her chance to take revenge. The new King, Louis 
XVI, had for Foreign Minister Count de Vergennes, 
a diplomat of some experience, who warmly urged 
supporting the cause of the American Colonists. He 
had for accomplice Beaumarchais, a nimble-witted 
playwright and seductive man of the world who 
talked very persuasively to the young King and many 
others. 

The Americans on their side had not been inactive, 
and early in 1776 Silas Deane, a member of Congress 
from Connecticut, was sent over to Paris with the 
mission to do his utmost to cement the friendship 
between the American Colonies and France. Deane 
worked to such good purpose that by October, 
1776, he had sent clothing for twenty thousand men, 
muskets for thirty thousand and large quantities of 
ammunition. A fictitious French house, which went 
by the name of Hortalaz et Cie, acted as agent and 
carried on the necessary business from Paris. By 
this time military adventurers in large numbers be- 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 95 

gan to flock to America to offer their swords to the 
rebelUous Colonials. Among them were a few — de 
Kalb, Pulaski, Steuben, and Kosciuszko — who did 
good service for the struggling young rebels, but most 
of them were worthless adventurers and marplots. 

Almost any American in Paris felt himself author- 
ized to give a letter of introduction to any French- 
man or other European who wished to try his for- 
tunes in America. One of the notorious cases was 
that of a French officer named Ducoudray, who 
brought a letter from Deane purporting to be an 
agreement that Ducoudray should command the 
artillery of the Continental army with the rank and 
pay of a major-general. Washington would take no 
responsibility for this appointment, which would 
have displaced General Knox, a hardy veteran, an 
indefectible patriot, and Washington's trusted friend. 
When the matter was taken up by the Congress, 
the demand was quickly disallowed. The absurdity 
of allowing Silas Deane or any other American in 
Paris, no matter how meritorious his own services 
might be, to assign to foreigners commissions of high 
rank in the American army was too obvious to be 
debated. 

To illustrate the character of Washington's mis- 
cellaneous labors in addition to his usual household 
care of the force under him, I borrow a few items 



96 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

from his correspondence. I borrow at random, the 
time being October, 1777, when the Commander- 
in-Chief is moving from place to place in northern 
New Jersey, watching the enemy and avoiding an 
engagement. A letter comes from Richard Henry 
Lee, evidently intended to sound Washington, in 
regard to the appointment of General Conway to a 
high command in the American army. Washington 
replies with corroding veracity. 

[Matuchin Hill, 17 October, 1777.] If there is any 
truth in the report that Congress hath appointed . . , 
Brigadier Conway a Major-general in this army, it will 
be as unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted. I may 
add, (and I think with truth) that it will give a fatal 
blow to the existence of the army. Upon so interesting 
a subject, I must speak plain. The duty I owe my coun- 
try, the ardent desire I have to promote its true interests, 
and justice to individuals, requires this of me. General 
Conway's merit, then, as an officer, and his importance 
in this army, exists more in his imagination, than in 
reality. For it is a maxim with him, to leave no service 
of his own untold, nor to want anything, which is to be 
obtained by importunity.^ 

It does not appear that Lee fished for letters of 
introduction for himself or any of his friends after 
this experiment. He needed no further proof that 
George Washington had the art of sending complete 
answers. 2 

* Ford, VI, 121. 

* For the end of Conway and his cabal see post, 112, 113. 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 97 

On October 25, 1777, desertions being frequent 
among the officers and men, Washington issued this 
circular to Pulaski and Colonels of Horse : 

I am sorry to find that the liberty I granted to the 
light dragoons of impressing horses near the enemy's 
line has been most horribly abused and perverted into a 
mere plundering scheme. I intended nothing more than 
that the horses belonging to the disaffected in the neigh- 
borhood of the British Army, should be taken for the 
use of the dismounted dragoons, and expected, that they 
would be regularly reported to the Quartermaster Gen- 
eral, that an account might be kept of the number and 
the persons from whom they were taken, in order to a 
future settlement. — Instead of this, I am informed 
that under pretence of the authority derived from me, 
they go about the country plundering whomsoever they 
are pleased to denominate tories, and converting what 
they get to their own private profit and emolument. 
This is an abuse that cannot be tolerated ; and as I find 
the license allowed them, has been made a sanction for 
such mischievous practices, I am under the necessity of 
recalling it altogether. You will therefore immediately 
make it known to your whole corps, that they are not 
under any pretence whatever to meddle with the horses 
or other property of any inhabitant whatever on pain 
of the severest punishment, for they may be assured as 
far as it depends upon me that military execution will 
attend all those who are caught in the like practice 
hereafter.^ 

One finds nothing ambiguous in this order to 
Pulaski and the Colonels of Horse. A more timid 
commander would have hesitated to speak so curtly 
* Ford, VI, 141. 



98 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

at a time when the officers and men of his army were 
deserting at will; but to Washington discipline was 
discipline, and he would maintain it, cost what it 
might, so long as he had ten men ready to obey him. 
Passing over three weeks we find W^ashington 
writing from Headquarters on November 14th to 
Sir William Howe, the British Commander-in-Chief, 
in regard to the maltreatment of prisoners and to 
proposals of exchanging officers on parole. 

I must also remonstrate against the maltreatment 
and confinement of our officers — this, I am informed, 
is not only the case of those in Philadelphia, but of many 
in New York. Whatever plausible pretences may be 
urged to authorize the condition of the former, it is 
certain but few circumstances can arise to justify that 
of the latter. I appeal to you to redress these several 
wrongs; and you will remember, whatever hardships 
the prisoners with us may be subjected to will be charge- 
able on you. At the same time it is but justice to ob- 
serve, that many of the cruelties exercised towards pris- 
oners are said to proceed from the inhumanity of Mr. 
Cunningham, provost-martial, without your knowl- 
edge or approbation.^ 

The letter was sufficiently direct for Sir WiUiam to 
understand it. If these extracts were multiplied by 
ten they would represent more nearly the mass of 
questions which came daily to Washington for de- 
cision. The decision had usually to be made in haste 

' Ford, VI, 195. 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 99 

and always with the understanding that it would not 
only settle the question immediately involved, but 
it would serve as precedent. 

The victory of Saratoga gave a great Impetus to 
the party in France which wished Louis XVI to 
come out boldly on the side of the Americans in their 
war with the British. The King was persuaded. 
Vergennes also secured the cooperation of Spain 
with France, for Spain had views against England, 
and she agreed that if a readjustment of sovereignty 
were coming in America, it would be prudent for her 
to be on hand to press her own claims. On February 
6, 1778, the treaty between France and America was 
signed.^ Long before this, however, a young French 
enthusiast who proved to be the most conspicuous 
of all the foreign volunteers, the Marquis de Lafay- 
ette, had come over with magnificent promises from 
Silas Deane. On being told, however, that the Con- 
gress found it impossible to ratify Deane's promises, 
he modestly requested to enlist in the army without 
pay. Washington at once took a fancy to him and 
insisted on his being a member of the Commander's 
family. 

While Burgoyne's surrendered army was marching 
to Boston and Cambridge, to be shut up as prison- 
ers, Washington was taking into consideration the 
^ The treaty was ratified by Congress May 4, 1778. 



lOO GEORGE WASHINGTON 

best place in which to pass the winter. Several 
were suggested, Wilmington, Delaware, and Valley 
Forge — about twenty-five miles from Philadelphia 
— being especially urged upon him. Washington 
preferred the latter, chiefly because it was near 
enough to Philadelphia to enable him to keep watch 
on the movements of the British troops in that city. 
Valley Forge! One of the names in human history 
associated with the maximum of suffering and dis- 
tress, with magnificent patience, sacrifice, and glory. 

The surrounding hills were covered with woods and 
presented an inhospitable appearance. The choice was 
severely criticised, and de Kalb described it as a wilder- 
ness. But the position was central and easily defended. 
The army arrived there about the middle of December, 
and the erection of huts began. They were built of logs 
and were 14 by 15 feet each. The windows were covered 
with oiled paper, and the openings between the logs 
were closed with clay. The huts were arranged in streets, 
giving the place the appearance of a city. It was the 
first of the year, however, before they were occupied, 
and previous to that the suffering of the army had be- 
come great. Although the weather was intensely cold, 
the men were obliged to work at the buildings, with 
nothing to support life but flour unmixed with water, 
which they baked into cakes at the open fires . . . the 
horses died of starvation by hundreds, and the men were 
obliged to haul their own provisions and firewood. As 
straw could not be found to protect the men from the 
cold ground, sickness spread through their quarters with 
fearful rapidity. "The unfortunate soldiers," wrote 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE loi 

Lafayette in after years, "they were in want of every- 
thing; they had neither coats, hats, shirts nor shoes; 
their feet and their legs froze till they became black, and 
it was often necessary to amputate them." . . . The army 
frequently remained whole days without provisions, and 
the patient endurance of the soldiers and officers was a 
miracle which each moment served to renew . . . while 
the country around Valley Forge was so impoverished 
by the military operations of the previous summer as 
to make it impossible for it to support the army. The 
sufferings of the latter were chiefly owing to the ineffi- 
ciency of Congress.* 

No one felt more keenly than did Washington the 
horrors of Valley Forge. He had not believed in 
forming such an encampment, and from the start 
he denounced the neglect and incompetence of the 
commissions. In a letter to the President of the Con- 
gress on December 3, 1777, he wrote: 

Since the month of July we have had no assistance 
from the quartermaster-general, and to want of assist- 
ance from this department the commissary-general 
charges great part of his deficiency. To this I am to add, 
that, notwithstanding it is a standing order, and often 
repeated that the troops shall always have two days' 
provisions by them, that they might be ready at any 
sudden call ; yet an opportunity has scarcely ever offered 
of taking an advantage of the enemy, that has not 
either been totally obstructed or greatly impeded, on 
this account. And this, the great and crying evil, is not 
all. The soap, vinegar, and other articles allowed by 
Congress, we see none of, nor have we seen them, I be- 

* F. D. Stone, Struggle for the Delaware, vi, ch. 5. 



102 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

lieve, since the Battle of Brandywine. The first, indeed, 
we have now Httle occasion for; few men having more 
than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some 
none at all. In addition to which, as a proof of the lit- 
tle benefit received from a clothier-general, and as a 
further proof of the inability of an army, under the cir- 
cumstances of this, to perform the common duties of 
soldiers, (besides a number of men confined to hospitals 
for want of shoes, and others in farmers' houses on the 
same account,) we have, by a field-return this day made, 
no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety- 
eight men now in camp unfit for duty, because they are 
barefoot and otherwise naked. By the same return it 
appears, that our whole strength in Continental troops, 
including the eastern brigades, which have joined us 
since the surrender of General Burgoyne, exclusive of the 
Maryland troops sent to Wilmington, amounts to no 
more than eight thousand two hundred in camp fit for 
duty; notwithstanding which, and that since the 4th 
instant our numbers fit for duty, from the hardships and 
exposures they have undergone, particularly on account 
of blankets (numbers having been obliged, and still are, 
to sit up all night by fires, instead of taking comfortable 
rest in a natural and common way), have decreased near 
two thousand men. 

We find gentlemen, without knowing whether the 
army was really going into winter-quarters or not (for 
I am sure no resolution of mine would warrant the Re- 
monstrance), reprobating the measure as much as if 
they thought the soldiers were made of stocks or stones 
and equally insensible of frost and snow; and moreover, 
as if they conceived it easily practicable for an inferior 
army, under the disadvantages I have described ours to 
be, which are by no means exaggerated, to confine a 
superior one, in all respects well-appointed and provided 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 103 

for a winter's campaign within the city of Philadelphia, 
and to cover from depredation and waste the States of 
Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes this matter 
still more extraordinary in my eye is, that these very 
gentlemen, — who were well apprized of the nakedness 
of the troops from ocular demonstration, who thought 
their own soldiers worse clad than others, and who ad- 
vised me near a month ago to postpone the execution of 
a plan I was about to adopt, in consequence of a resolve 
of Congress for seizing clothes, under strong assurances 
that an ample supply would be collected in ten days 
agreeably to a decree of the State (not one article of 
which, by the by, is yet come to hand) — should think a 
winter's campaign, and the covering of these States from 
the invasion of an enemy, so easy and practicable a 
business. I can assure those gentlemen, that it is a 
much easier and less distressing thing to draw remon- 
strances in a comfortable room by a good fireside, than 
to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and 
snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although 
they seem to have little feeling for the naked and dis- 
tressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and, 
from my soul, I pity those miseries, which it is neither 
in my power to relieve or prevent. 

It is for these reasons, therefore, that I have dwelt 
upon the subject, and it adds not a little to my other 
difficulties and distress to find, that much more is ex- 
pected of me than is possible to be performed, and that 
upon the ground of safety and policy I am obliged to 
conceal the true state of the army from public view, and 
thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny.^ 

Mrs. Washington, as was her custom throughout 
the war, spent part of the winter with the General. 

* Ford, VI, 259, 262. 



104 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Her brief allusions to Valley Forge would hardly lead 
the reader to infer the horrors that nearly ten thou- 
sand American soldiers were suffering. 

"Your Mamma has not yet arrived," Washington 
writes to Jack Custis, "but . . . expected every hour. 
[My aide] Meade set off yesterday (as soon as I got no- 
tice of her intention) to meet her. We are in a dreary 
kind of place, and uncomfortably provided." And of 
this reunion Mrs. Washington wrote: "I came to this 
place, some time about the first of February when I 
found the General very well, ... in camp in what is 
called the great valley on the Banks of the Schuylkill. 
Officers and men are chiefly in Hutts, which they say is 
tolerably comfortable; the army are as healthy as can 
be well expected in general. The General's apartment 
is very small; he has had a log cabin built to dine in, 
which has made our quarters much more tolerable than 
they were at first." ^ 

While the Americans languished and died at 
Valley Forge during the winter months, Sir William 
Howe and his troops lived in Philadelphia not only 
in great comfort, but in actual luxury. British gold 
paid out in cash to the dealers in provisions bought 
full supplies from one of the best markets in Amer- 
ica. And the people of the place, largely made up of 
Loyalists, vied with each other in providing enter- 
tainment for the British army. There were fashion 
able balls for the officers and free-and-easy revels for 
the soldiers. Almost at any time the British army 
* P. L. Ford, The True George Washington, 99. 



TRENTON AND VALLEY FORGE 105 

might have marched out to Valley Forge and dealt 
a final blow to Washington's naked and starving 
troops, but it preferred the good food and the dissi- 
pations of Philadelphia; and so the winter dragged 
on to spring. 

Howe was recalled to England and General Sir 
Henry Clinton succeeded him in the command of the 
British forces. He was one of those well-upholstered 
carpet knights who flourished in the British army at 
that time, and was even less energetic than Howe. 
We must remember, however, that the English of- 
ficers who came over to fight in America had had 
their earlier training in Europe, where conditions 
were quite different from those here. Especially was 
this true of the terrain. Occasionally a born fighter 
like Wolfe did his work in a day, but this was differ- 
ent from spending weeks and months in battleless 
campaigns. The Philadelphians arranged a farewell 
celebration for General Howe which they called the 
Meschianza, an elaborate pageant, said to be the 
most beautiful ever seen in America, after which 
General Howe and General Clinton had orders to 
take their army back to New York. As much as 
could be shipped on boats went that way, but the 
loads that had to be carried in wagons formed a caval- 
cade twelve miles long, and with the attending regi- 
ment advanced barely more than two and a half 



io6 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

miles a day. Washington, whose troops entered 
Philadelphia as soon as the British marched out, 
hung on the retreating column and at Monmouth en- 
gaged in a pitched battle, which was on the point of 
being a decisive victory for the Americans when, 
through the blunder of General Lee, it collapsed. The 
blunder seemed too obviously intentional, but W^ash- 
ington appeared in the midst of the melee and urged 
on the men to retrieve their defeat. This was the battle 
of which one of the soldiers said afterwards, "At Mon- 
mouth the General swore like an angel from Heaven." 
He prevented disaster, but that could not reconcile 
him to the loss of the victory which had been almost 
within his grasp. Those who witnessed it never for- 
got Washington's rage when he met Lee and asked 
him what he meant and then ordered him to the rear. 
Washington prepared to renew the battle on the fol- 
lowing da}^, but during the night Clinton withdrew 
his army, and by daylight was far on his way to the 
seacoast. 

Washington followed up the coast and took up his 
quarters at W^hite Plains. 



T 



CHAPTER VI 

AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 

HIS month of July, 1778, marked two vital 
changes in the war. The first was the transfer 
by the British of the field of operations to the South. 
The second was the introduction of naval warfare 
through the coming of the French. The British 
seemed to desire, from the day of Concord and Lex- 
ington on, to blast every part of the Colonies with 
military occupation and battles. After Washington 
drove them out of Boston in March, 1776, they left 
the seaboard, except Newport, entirely free. Then 
for nearly three years they gave their chief attention 
to New York City and its environs, and to Jersey 
down to, and including, Philadelphia. On the whole, 
except for keeping their supremacy in New York, 
they had lost ground steadily, although they had 
always been able to put more men than the Ameri- 
cans could match in the field, so that the Americans 
always had an uphill fight. Part of this disadvan- 
tage was owing to the fact that the British had a 
fleet, often a very large fleet, which could be sent 
suddenly to distant points along the seacoast, much 
to the upsetting of the American plans. 
The French Alliance, ratified during the spring, 



io8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

not only gave the Americans the moral advantage of 
the support of a great nation, but actually the sup- 
port of a powerful fleet. It opened French harbors 
to American vessels, especially privateers, which 
could there take refuge or fit out. It enabled the 
Continentals to carry on commerce, which before the 
war had been the monopoly of England. Above all 
it brought a large friendly fleet to American waters, 
which might aid the land forces and must always be 
an object of anxiety to the British. 

Such a fleet was that under Count d'Estaing, who 
reached the mouth of Delaware Bay on July 8, 
1778, with twelve ships of the line and four frigates. 
He then went to New York, but the pilots thought 
his heavy draught ships could not cross the bar 
above Sandy Hook; and so he sailed off to Newport 
where a British fleet worsted him and he was obliged 
to put into Boston for repairs. Late in the autumn 
he took up his station in the West Indies for the 
winter. This first experiment of French naval co- 
operation had not been crowned by victory as the 
Americans had hoped, but many of the other advan- 
tages which they expected from the French Alliance 
did ensue. The opening of the American ports to the 
trade of the world, and incidentally the promotion 
of American privateering, proved of capital assist- 
ance to the cause itself. 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 109 

The summer and autumn of 1778 passed unevent- 
fully for Washington and his army. He was not 
strong enough to risk any severe fighting, but wished 
to be near the enemy's troops to keep close watch on 
them and to take advantage of any mistake in their 
moves. We cannot see how he could have saved 
himself if they had attacked him with force. Bu;t 
that they never made the attempt was probably 
owing to orders from London to be as considerate of 
the Americans as they could; for England in that 
year had sent out three Peace Commissioners who 
bore the most seductive offers to the Americans. 
The Go\*ernment was ready to pledge that there 
should never again be an attempt to quell the Col- 
onists by an army and that they should be virtually 
self-governing. But while the Commissioners tried 
to persuade, very obviously, they did not receive 
any official recognition from the Congress or the 
local conventions, and when winter approached; 
they sailed back to England with their mission ut- 
terly unachieved. Rebuffed in their purpose of 
ending the war by conciliation, the British now re- 
sorted to treachery and corruption. I do not know 
whether General Sir Henry Clinton was more or 
less of a man of honor than the other high officers in 
the British army at that time. We feel instinctively 
loath to harbor a suspicion against the honor of these 



no GEORGE WASHINGTON 

officers; and yet, the truth demands us to declare 
that some one among them engaged in the miserable 
business of bribing Americans to be traitors. Where 
the full guilt lies, we shall never know, but the fact 
that so many of the trails lead back to General Clin- 
ton gives us a reason for a strong surmise. We have 
lists drawn up at British Headquarters of the Ameri- 
cans who were probably approachable, and the de- 
gree of ease with which it was supposed they could be 
corrupted. "Ten thousand guineas and a major- 
general's commission were the price for which West 
Point, with its garrison, stores, and outlying posts, 
was to be placed in the hands of the British." ^ The 
person with whom the British made this bargain was 
Benedict Arnold, who had been one of the most 
efficient of Washington's generals, and of unques- 
tioned loyalty. Major John Andre, one of Clinton's 
adjutants, served as messenger between Clinton and 
Arnold. On one of these errands Andre, somewhat 
disguised, was captured by the Americans and taken 
before Washington, who ordered a court-martial at 
once. Fourteen officers sat on it, including Generals 
Greene, Lafayette, and Steuben. In a few hours 
they brought in a verdict to the effect that "Major 
Andre ought to be considered a spy from the enemy, 
and that agreeable to the law and usage of nations, 
* Channing, iii, 305. 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS iii 

it is their opinion he ought to suffer death." ^ 
Throughout the proceedings Andre behaved with 
great dignity. He was a 3^oung man of sympathetic 
nature. Old Steuben, familiar with the usage in the 
Prussian army, said: " It is not possible to save him. 
He put us to no proof, but a premeditated design 
to deceive." ^ 

He was sentenced to death by hanging — the 
doom of traitors. He did not fear to die, but that 
doom repelled him and he begged to be shot instead. 
Washington, however, in view of his great crime and 
as a most necessary example in that crisis, firmly 
refused to commute the sentence. So, on the second 
of October, 1780, Andre was hanged. 

This is an appropriate place to refer briefly to one 
of the most trying features of Washington's career 
as Commander-in-Chief. From very early in the 
war jealousy inspired some of his associates with a 
desire to have him displaced. He was too conspicu- 
ously the very head and front of the American 
cause. Some men, doubtless open to dishonest sug- 
gestions, wished to get rid of him in order that they 
might carry on their treasonable conspiracy with 
greater ease and with a better chance of success. 
Others bluntly coveted his position. Perhaps some 
of them really thought that he was pursuing wrong 

* Channing, iii, 307. * Jbid., 307. 



112 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

methods or policy. However it may be, few command- 
ers-in-chief in history have had to suffer more than 
Washington did from maUce and faction. 

The most serious of the plots against him was the 
so-called Conway Cabal, whose head was Thomas 
Conway, an Irishman who had served in the French 
army and had come over early in the war to the 
Colonies to make his way as a soldier of fortune. 
He seems to have been one of the typical Irishmen 
who had no sense of truth, who was talkative and 
boastful, and a mirthful companion. It happened 
that Washington received a letter from one of his 
friends which drew from him the following note to 
Brigadier-General Conway: 

A letter, which I received last night, contained the 
following paragraph: 

"In a letter from General Conway to General Gates 
he says, 'Heaven has been determined to save your 
country, or a weak General and bad counsellors would 
have ruined it.'" ' 

It was characteristic of Washington that he should 
tell Conway at once that he knew of the latter's 
machinations. Nevertheless Washington took no 
open step against him. The situation of the army at 
Valley Forge was then so desperately bad that he did 
not wish to make it worse, perhaps, by interjecting 
into it what might be considered a matter personal 
^ Ford, VI, i8o. 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 113 

to himself. In the Congress also there were mem- 
bers who belonged to the Conway Cabal, and al- 
though it was generally known that Washington did 
not trust him, Congress raised his rank to that of 
Major-General and appointed him Inspector-Gen- 
eral to the Army. On this Conway wrote to Wash- 
ington: "If my appointment is productive of any 
inconvenience, or otherwise disagreeable to your 
Excellency, as I neither applied nor solicited for 
this place, I am very ready to return to France." 
The spice of this letter consists in the fact that Con- 
way's disavowal was a plain lie; for he had been so- 
liciting for the appointment "with forwardness," 
says Mr. Ford, "almost amounting to impudence." 
Conway did not enjoy his new position long. Being 
wounded in a duel with an American officer, and 
thinking that he was going to die, he wrote to Wash- 
ington: "My career will soon be over, therefore 
justice and truth prompt me to declare my last 
sentiments. You are in my eyes the great and good 
man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and 
esteem of these states, whose liberties you have 
asserted by your virtues." ^ But he did not die of 
his wound, and in a few months he left for France. 
After his departure the cabal, of which he seemed to 
be the centre, died. 

* Sparks, 254. 



114 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

The story of this cabal is still shrouded in mys- 
tery. Whoever had the original papers either de- 
stroyed them or left them with some one who de- 
posited them in a secret place where they have been 
forgotten. Persons of importance, perhaps of even 
greater importance than some of those who are 
known, would naturally do their utmost to prevent 
being found out. 

Two other enemies of W^ashington had unsavory 
reputations in their dealings with him. One of these 
was General Horatio Gates, who was known as 
ambitious to be made head of the American army in 
place of Washington. Gates won the Battle of Sara- 
toga at which Burgoyne surrendered his British 
army. Washington at that time was struggling to 
keep his army in the Highlands, where he could 
watch the other British forces. It was easy for any 
one to make the remark that Washington had not 
won a battle for many months, whereas Gates was 
the hero of the chief victory thus far achieved by 
the Americans. The shallow might think as they 
chose, however: the backbone of the country stood 
by Washington, and the trouble between him and 
Gates came to no further outbreak. 

The third intriguer was General Charles Lee, who, 
like Gates, was an Englishman, and had served under 
General Braddock, being in the disaster of Fort 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 115 

Duquesne. When the Revolution broke out, he took 
sides with the Americans, and being a glib and forth- 
putting person he talked himself into the repute of 
being a great general. The Americans proudly gave 
him a very high commission, in which he stood 
second to Washington, the Commander-in-Chief. 
But being taken prisoner by the British, he had no 
opportunity of displaying his military talents for 
more than two years. Then, when Washington was 
pursuing the enemy across Jersey, Lee demanded 
as his right to lead the foremost division. At Mon- 
mouth he was given the post of honor and he at- 
tacked with such good effect that he had already 
begun to beat the British division opposed to him 
when he suddenly gave strange orders which threw 
his men into confusion. 

Lafayette, who was not far away, noticed the dis- 
order, rode up to Lee and remarked that the time 
seemed to be favorable for cutting off a squadron of 
the British troops. To this Lee replied: "Sir, you 
do not know the British soldiers; we cannot stand 
against them; we shall certainly be driven back at 
first, and we must be cautious." ^ Washington him- 
self had by this time perceived that something was 
wrong and galloped up to Lee in a towering passion. 
He addressed him words which, so far as I know, no 
* Sparks, 275, note i. 



ii6 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

historian has reported, not because there was any 
ambiguity in them, and Lee's Hne was sufficiently 
re-formed to save the day. Lee, however, smarted 
under the torrent of reproof, as well he might. The 
next day he wrote Washington a very insulting 
letter. Washington replied still more hotly. Lee 
demanded a court-martial and was placed under 
arrest on three charges: "First, disobedience of 
orders in not attacking the enemy agreeably to re- 
peated instructions; secondly, misbehavior before 
the enemy, in making an unnecessary, disorderly 
and shameful retreat; thirdly, disrespect to the 
Commander in-Chief in two letters written after the 
action." ^ By the ruling of the court all the charges 
against General Lee were sustained with the ex- 
ception that the word "shameful" was omitted. 
Lee left the army, retired to Philadelphia, and died 
before the end of the Revolution. General Mifflin, 
another conspicuous member of the cabal, resigned 
at the end of the year, December, 1777. So the tra- 
ducers of Washington were punished by the reactions 
of their own crimes. 

^ Sparks, 278. Sparks tells the story that when Washington ad- 
ministered the oath of allegiance to his troops at Valley Forge, soon 
after Lee had rejoined the army, the generals, standing together, held 
a Bible. But Lee deliberately withdrew his hand twice. Washington 
asked why he hesitated. He replied, "As to King George, I am ready 
enough to absolve myself from all allegiance to him, but I have some 
scruples about the Prince of Wales." {Ibid., 278.) 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 117 

That the malicious hostiHty of his enemies really 
troubled Washington, such a letter as the following 
from him to President Laurens of the Congress well 
indicates. He says: 

I cannot sufficiently express the obligation I feel to 
you, for your friendship and politeness upon an occa- 
sion in which I am so deeply interested. I was not unap- 
prized that a malignant faction had been for some time 
forming to my prejudice; which, conscious as I am of 
having ever done all in my power to answer the impor- 
tant purposes of the trust reposed in me, could not but 
give me some pain on a personal account. But my chief 
concern arises from an apprehension of the dangerous 
consequences, which intestine dissensions may produce 
to the common cause. 

As I have no other view than to promote the public 
good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the 
approbation of my country, I would not desire in the 
least degree to suppress a free spirit of inquiry into any 
part of my conduct, that even faction itself may deem 
reprehensible. The anonymous paper handed to you 
exhibits many serious charges, and it is my wish that it 
should be submitted to Congress. This I am the more 
inclined to, as the suppression or concealment may pos- 
sibly involve you in embarrassments hereafter, since it 
is uncertain how many or who may be privy to the con- 
tents. 

My enemies take an ungenerous advantage of me. 
They know the delicacy of my situation, and that mo- 
tives of policy deprive me of the defence, I might other- 
wise make against their insidious attacks. They know I 
cannot combat their insinuations, however injurious, 
without disclosing secrets, which it is of the utmost mo- 
ment to conceal. But why should I expect to be exempt 



ii8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

from censure, the unfailing lot of an elevated station? 
Merit and talents, with which I can have no pretensions 
of rivalship, have ever been subject to it. My heart tells 
me, that it has been my unremitted aim to do the best 
that circumstances would permit; yet I may have been 
very often mistaken in my judgment of the means, and 
may in many instances deserve the imputation of error. 
(Valley Forge, 31 January, 1778.) ^ 

Such was the sort of explanation which was wrung 
from the Silent Man when he explained to an inti- 
mate the secrets of his heart. 

To estimate the harassing burden of these plots we 
must bear in mind that, while Washington had to 
suffer them in silence, he had also to deal every day 
with the Congress and with an army which, at Val- 
ley Forge, was dying slowly of cold and starvation. 
There was literally no direction from which he could 
expect help; he must hold out as long as he could 
and keep from the dwindling, disabled army the fact 
that some day they would wake up to learn that the 
last crumb had been eaten and that death only re- 
mained for them. On one occasion, after he had 
visited Philadelphia and had seen the Congress in 
action, he unbosomed himself about it in a letter 
which contained these terrible words: 

If I was to be called upon to draw a picture of the 
times and of men, from what I have seen, and heard, 
and in part know, I should in one word say that idleness, 

» Ford, VI, 353. 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 119 

dissipation and extravagance seems to have laid fast hold 
of most of them. That speculation — peculation — and 
an insatiable thirst for riches seems to have got the bet- 
ter of every other consideration and almost of every 
order of men. That party disputes and personal quar- 
rels are the great business of the day whilst the momen- 
tous concerns of an empire — a great and accumulated 
debt — ruined finances — depreciated money — and 
want of credit (which in their consequences is the want 
of everything) are but secondary considerations, and 
postponed from day to day — from week to week as if 
our affairs wear the most-promising aspect. 

The events of 1778 made a lasting impression on 
King George III. The alliance of France with the 
Americans created a sort of reflex patriotism which 
the Government did what it could to foster. British 
Imperialism flamed forth as an ideal, one whose 
purposes must be to crush the French. The most 
remarkable episode was the return of the Earl of 
Chatham, much broken and in precarious health, to 
the King's fold. To the venerable statesman the 
thought that any one with British blood in his veins 
should stand by rebels of British blood, or by their 
French allies, was a cause of rage. On April 7, 1778, 
the great Chatham appeared in the House of Lords 
and spoke for Imperialism and against the Ameri- 
cans and French. There was a sudden stop in his 
speaking, and a moment later, confusion, as he fell 
in a fit. He never spoke there again, and though he 



7 



120 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

was hurried home and cared for by the doctors as 
best they could, he died on the eleventh of May. At 
the end he reverted to the dominant ideal of his 
life — the supremac}^ of England. So his chief rival 
in Parliament, Edmund Burke, who shocked more 
than half of England by seeming to approve the 
nascent French Revolution, died execrating it. 

The failure of the Commission on Reconciliation 
to get even an official hearing in America further de- 
pressed George III, and there seemed to have flitted 
through his unsound mind more and more frequent 
premonitions that England might not win after all. 
Having made friendly overtures, which were re- 
jected, he now planned to be more savage than ever. 
In 1779 the American privateers won many victories 
which gave them a reputation out of proportion to 
the importance of the battles they fought, or the 
prizes they took. Chief among the commanders of 
these vessels was a Scotchman, John Paul Jones, 
who sailed the Bonhomme Richard and with two 
companion ships attacked the Serapis and the 
Scarborough, convoying a company of merchantmen 
off Flamborough Head. Night fell, darkness came, 
the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis kept up 
bombarding each other at short range. During a 
brief pause, Pearson, the British captain, called out, 
"Have you struck your colors?" at which Jones 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 121 

shouted back, "I have not yet begun to fight." 
Before morning the Serapis surrendered and in the 
forenoon the victorious Bonhomme Richard sank. 
Europe rang with the exploit; not merely those easily 
thrilled by a spectacular engagement, but those who 
looked deeper began to ask themselves whether the 
naval power that must be reckoned with was not 
rising in the West. 

Meanwhile, Washington kept his uncertain army 
near New York. The city swarmed with Loyalists, 
who at one time boasted of having a volunteer or- 
ganization larger than Washington's army. These 
later years seem to have been the hey-day of the 
Loyalists in most of the Colonies, although the 
Patriots passed severe laws against them, sequestrat- 
ing their property and even banishing them. In 
places like New York, where General Clinton main- 
tained a refuge, they stayed on, hoping, as they had 
done for several years, that the war would soon be 
over and the King's authority restored. 

In the South there were several minor fights, in 
which now the British and now the Americans tri- 
umphed. At the end of December, 1779, Clinton and 
Cornwallis with nearly eight thousand men went 
down to South Carolina intending to reduce that 
State to submission. One of Washington's lieuten- 
ants, General Lincoln, ill-advisedly thought that he 



122 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

could defend Charleston. But as soon as the enemy 
were ready, they pressed upon him hard and he sur- 
rendered. The year ended in gloom. The British 
were virtually masters in the Carolinas and in 
Georgia. The people of those States felt that they 
had been abandoned by the Congress and that they 
were cut off from relations with the Northern States. 
The glamour of glory at sea which had brightened 
them all the year before had vanished. John Paul 
Jones might win a striking sea-fight, but there was no 
navy, nor ships enough to transport troops down to 
the Southern waters where they might have turned 
the tide of battle on shore. During the winter the 
British continued their marauding in the South. 
For lack of troops Washington was obliged to stay 
in his quarters near New York and feel the irksome- 
ness of inactivity. General Nathanael Greene, a 
very energetic officer, next indeed to Washington 
himself in general estimation, commanded in the 
South. At the Cowpens (January 17, 1781) one of 
his lieutenants — Morgan, a guerilla leader — killed 
or captured nearly all of Tarleton's men, who 
formed a specially crack regiment. A little later 
Washington marched southward to Virginia, hoping 
to cooperate with the French fleet under Rocham- 
beau and to capture Benedict Arnold, now a British 
Major-General, who was doing much damage in 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 123 

Virginia. Arnold was too wary to be caught. Corn- 
wallis, the second in command of the British forces, 
pursued Lafayette up and down Virginia. CHnton, 
the British Commander-in-Chief, began to feel nerv- 
ous for the safety of New York and wished to de- 
tach some of his forces thither. Cornwallis led his 
army into Yorktown and proceeded to fortify it, so 
that it might resist a siege. Now at last Washington 
felt that he had the enemy's army within his grasp. 
Sixteen thousand American and French troops were 
brought down from the North to furnish the fighting 
arm he required. 

Yorktown lay on the south shore of the York 
River, an estuaiy of Chesapeake Bay. On the op- 
posite side the little town of Gloucester projected 
into the river. In Yorktown itself the English had 
thrown up two redoubts and had drawn some lines 
of wall. The French kept up an unremitting cannon- 
ade, but it became evident that the redoubts must 
be taken in order to subdue the place. Washington, 
much excited, took his place in the central battery 
along with Generals Knox and Lincoln and their 
staff. Those about him recognized the peril he was 
in, and one of his adjutants called his attention to the 
fact that the place was much exposed. " If you think 
so," said he, "you are at liberty to step back." 
Shortly afterward a musket ball struck the cannon 



124 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

in the embrasure and rolled on till it fell at his feet. 
General Knox took him by the arm. "My dear 
General," he exclaimed, "we can't spare you yet." 
"It is a spent ball," Washington rejoined calmly; 
"no harm is done." When the redoubts were taken, 
he drew a long breath and said to Knox: "The work 
is done, and well done." ^ Lord Cornwallis saw that 
his position was desperate, if not hopeless. And on 
October i6th he made a plucky attempt to retard 
the final blow, but he did not succeed. That evening 
he thought of undertaking a last chance. He would 
cross the York River in flatboats, land at Gloucester, 
and march up the country through Virginia, Mary- 
land, Pennsylvania, and New York. Any one who 
knew the actual state of that region understood that 
Cornwallis's plan was crazy; but it is to be judged as 
the last gallantry of a brave man. During the night 
he put forth on his flatboats, which were driven out 
of their course and much dispersed by untoward 
winds. They had to return to Yorktown by morning, 
and at ten o'clock Cornwallis ordered that a parley 
should be beaten. Then he despatched a flag of 
truce with a letter to Washington proposing cessa- 
tion of hostilities for twenty-four hours. Washington 
knew that British ships were on their way from New 
York to bring relief and he did not wish to grant so 

1 Irv'ing, IV, 378. 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 125 

much delay. He, therefore, proposed that the formal 
British terms should be sent to him in writing; upon 
which he would agree to a two hours' truce. It was 
the morning of the 19th of October that the final 
arrangement was made. Washington, on horseback, 
attended by his staff, headed the American line. 
His troops, in worn-out uniforms, but looking happy 
and victorious, were massed near him. Count Ro- 
chambeau, with his suite, held place on the left of 
the road, the French troops all well-uniformed and 
equipped; and they marched on the field with a 
military band playing — the first time, it was said, 
that this had been known in America. "About two 
o'clock the garrison sallied forth and passed through 
with shouldered arms, slow and solemn steps, colors 
cased, and drums beating a British march." ^ Gen- 
eral O'Hara, who led them, rode up to Washington 
and apologized for the absence of Lord Cornwallis, 
who was indisposed. Washington pointed O'Hara 
to General Lincoln, who was to receive the submis- 
sion of the garrison. They were marched off to a 
neighboring field where they showed a sullen and dis- 
pirited demeanor and grounded their arms so noisily 
and carelessly that General Lincoln had to reprove 
them. 
With little delay Washington went back to the 

1 Irving, IV, 383. 



126 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

North with his army, expecting to see the first fruits 
of the capitulation. There were nearly seventeen 
thousand Allied troops at Yorktown of whom three 
thousand were militia of Virginia. The British force 
under Cornwallis numbered less than eight thousand 
men. 

Months were required before the truce between 
the two belligerents resulted in peace. But the 
people of America hailed the news of Yorktown as 
the end of the war. They had hardly admitted to 
themselves the gravity of the task while the war 
lasted, and being now relieved of immediate danger, 
they gave themselves up to surprising insouciance. 
A few among them who thought deeply, Washing- 
ton above all, feared that the British might indulge 
in some surprise which they would find it hard to 
repel. 

But the American Revolution was indeed ended, 
and the American Colonies of 1775 were indeed in- 
dependent and free. Even in the brief outline of the 
course of events which I have given, it must appear 
that the American Revolution was almost the most 
hare-brained enterprise in history. After the first 
days of Lexington and Concord, when the farmers 
and country-folk rushed to the centres to check the 
British invaders, the British had almost continu- 
ously a large advantage in position and in number of 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 127 

troops. And in those early days the Colonists fought, 
not for Independence, but for the traditional rights 
which the British Crown threatened to take from 
them. Now they had their freedom, but what a 
freedom! There were thirteen unrelated political 
communities bound together now only by the fact of 
having been united in their common struggle against 
England. Each had adopted a separate constitution, 
and the constitutions were not uniform nor was there 
any central unifying power to which they all looked 
up and obeyed. The vicissitudes of the war, which 
had been fought over the region of twelve hundred 
miles of coast, had proved the repellent differences 
of the various districts. The slave-breeder and the 
slave-owner of Virginia and the States of the South 
had little in common with the gnarled descendants 
of the later Puritans in New England. What prin- 
ciple could be found to knit them together? The 
war had at least the advantage of bringing home to 
all of them the evils of war which they all instinc- 
tively desired to escape. The numbers of the dis- 
affected, particularly of the Loyalists who openly 
sided with the King and with the British Govern- 
ment, were much larger than we generally suppose, 
and they not only gave much direct help and com- 
fort to the enemy, but also much indirect and insid- 
ious aid. In the great cities like New York and 



128 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Philadelphia they numbered perhaps two fifths of 
the total population, and, as they were usually the 
rich and influential people, they counted for more 
than their showing in the census. How could they 
ever be unified in the American Republic? How 
many of them, like the traitorous General Charles 
Lee, would confess that, although they were willing 
to pass by George HI as King, they still felt devotion 
and loyalty to the Prince of Wales? 

Some of those who had leaned toward Loyalism, 
to be on what they supposed would prove the win- 
ning side, quickly forgot their lapse and were very 
enthusiastic in acclaiming the Patriotic victory. 
Those Irreconcilables who had not already fled did 
so at once, leaving their property behind them to be 
confiscated by the Government. On only one point 
did there seem to be unanimity and accord. That 
was that the dogged prosecution of the war and the 
ultimate victory must be credited to George Wash- 
ington. Others had fought valiantly and endured 
hardships and fatigues and gnawing suspense, but 
without him, who never wavered, they could not 
have gone on. He had among them some able lieu- 
tenants, but not one who, had he himself fallen out 
of the command by wound or sickness for a month, 
could have taken his place. The people knew this 
and they now paid him in honor and gratitude for 



AID FROM FRANCE; TRAITORS 129 

what he had done for them. If there were any mem- 
bers of the old cabal, any envious rivals, they either 
held their peace or spoke in whispers. The masses 
were not yet weary of hearing Aristides called the 
Just. 



CHAPTER VII 
WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 

NEARLY two years elapsed before the real 
settlement of the war. The English held New 
York City, Charleston, and Savannah, the strong 
garrisons. It seemed likely that they would have 
been glad to arrange the terms of peace sooner, but 
there was much inner turmoil at home. The men 
who, through thick and thin, had abetted the King 
in one plan after another to fight to the last ditch 
had nothing more to propose. Lord North, when he 
heard of the surrender of Yorktown, almost shrieked, 
"My God! It is all over; it is all over!" and was 
plunged in gloom. A new ministry had to be formed. 
Lord North had been succeeded by Rockingham, 
who died in July, 1782, and was followed by Shel- 
burne, supposed to be rather liberal, but to share 
King George's desire to keep down the Whigs. Ne- 
gotiations over the terms of peace were carried on 
with varying fortune for more than a year. John 
Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin were the 
American Peace Commissioners. The preliminaries 
between Great Britain and America were signed on 
December 30, 1782, and with France and Spain 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 131 

nearly two months later. The Dutch held out still 
longer into 1783. Washington, at his Headquarters 
in Newburgh, New York, had been awaiting the 
news of peace, not lazily, but planning for a new 
campaign and meditating upon the various projects 
which might be undertaken. To him the news of the 
actual signing of the treat}^ came at the end of 
March. He replied at once to Theodorick Bland; a 
letter which gave his general views in regard to the 
needs and rights of the army before it should be dis- 
banded : 

It is now the bounden duty of every one to make the 
blessings thereof as diffusive as possible. Nothing would 
so effectually bring this to pass as the removal of those 
local prejudices which intrude upon and embarrass that 
great line of policy which alone can make us a free, happy 
and powerful People. Unless our Union can be fixed upon 
such a basis as to accomplish these, certain I am we have 
toiled, bled and spent our treasure to very little purpose. 

We have now a National character to establish, and 
it is of the utmost importance to stamp favorable im- 
pressions upon it; let justice be then one of its char- 
acteristics, and gratitude another. Public creditors of 
every denomination will be comprehended in the first; 
the Army in a particular manner will have a claim to 
the latter; to say that no distinction can be made be- 
tween the claims of public creditors is to declare that 
there is no difference in circumstances; or that the serv- 
ices of all men are equally alike. This Army is of near 
eight years' standing, six of which they have spent in 
the Field without any other shelter from the inclemency 
of the seasons than Tents, or such Houses as they could 



132 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

build for themselves without expense to the public. 
They have encountered hunger, cold and nakedness. 
They have fought many Battles and bled freely. They 
have lived without pay and in consequence of it, officers 
as well as men have subsisted upon their Rations. 

They have often, very often, been reduced to the ne- 
cessity of eating Salt Porke, or Beef not for a day, or a 
week only but months together without Vegetables or 
money to buy them; or a cloth to wipe on. 

Many of them do better, and to dress as Officers have 
contracted heavy debts or spent their patrimonies. 
The first see the Doors of gaols open to receive them, 
whilst those of the latter are shut against them. Is there 
no discrimination then — no extra exertion to be made 
in favor of men in these peculiar circumstances, in the 
event of their military dissolution? Or, if no worse 
Cometh of it, are they to be turned adrift soured and 
discontented, complaining of the ingratitude of their 
Country, and under the influence of these passions to 
become fit subjects for unfavorable impressions, and 
unhappy dissentions? For permit me to add, tho every 
man in the Army feels his distress — it is not every one 
that will reason to the cause of it. 

I would not from the observations here made, be un- 
derstood to mean that Congress should (because I know 
they cannot, nor does the army expect it) pay the full 
arrearages due to them till Continental or State funds 
are established for the purpose. They would, from what 
I can learn, go home contented — nay — thankful to 
receive what I have mentioned in a more public letter 
of this date, and in the manner there expressed. And 
surely this may be efi^ected with proper exertions. Or 
what possibility was there of keeping the army together, 
if the war had continued, when the victualls, clothing, 
and other expenses of it were to have been added ? An- 
other thing, Sir, (as I mean to be frank and free in my 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE i33 

communications on this subject,) I will not conceal 
from you — it is the dissimilarity in the payments to 
men in Civil and Military life. The first receive every- 
thing — the others get nothing but bare subsistence — 
they ask what this is owing to? and reasons have 
been assigned, which, say they, amount to this — that 
men in Civil life have stronger passions and better pre- 
tensions to indulge them, or less virtue and regard for 
their Country than us, — otherwise, as we are all con- 
tending for the same prize and equally interested in the 
attainment of it, why do we not bear the burthen 
equally? ^ 

The army was indeed the incubus of the Ameri- 
cans. They could not fight the war without it, but 
they had never succeeded in mastering the difficulties 
of maintaining and strengthening it. The system of 
a standing army was of course not to be thought of, 
and the uncertain recruits who took its place were 
mostly undisciplined and unreliable. When the exi- 
gencies became pressing, a new method was resorted 
to, and then the usual erosion of life in the field, the 
losses by casualties and sickness, caused the numbers 
to dwindle. Long ago the paymaster had ceased to 
pretend to pay ofT the men regularly so that there 
was now a large amount of back pay due them. 
Largely through Washington's patriotic exhorta- 
tions had they kept fighting to the end; and, with 
peace upon them, they did not dare to disband be- 
^ Ford, X, 203. 



134 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

cause they feared that, if they left before they were 
paid, they would never be paid. Washington felt 
that, if thousands of discontented and even angry 
soldiers were allowed to go back to their homes 
without the means of taking up any work or busi- 
ness, great harm would be done. The love of country, 
which he believed to be most important to inculcate, 
would not only be checked but perverted. They al- 
ready had too many reasons to feel aggrieved. Why 
should they, the men who risked their lives in battle 
and actually had starved or frozen in winter quarters, 
go unpaid, whereas every civilian who had a post 
under the Government lived at least safely and 
healthily and was paid with fair promptitude.'' 
They felt now that their best hope for justice lay 
in General Washington's interest in their behalf; 
and that interest of his seems now one of the 
noblest and wisest and most patriotic of his expres- 
sions. 

Washington had need to be prepared for any 
emergency. Thus a body of officers deliberated not 
only a mutiny of the army, but a coup d'etat, in 
which they planned to overthrow the flimsy Federa- 
tion of the thirteen States and to set up a monarchy. 
They wrote to Washington announcing their in- 
tention and their belief that he would make an ideal 
monarch. He was amazed and chagrined. He re- 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 135 

plied in part as follows, to the Colonel who had 
written him: 

I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my con- 
duct could have given encouragement to an address, 
which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs, that 
can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the 
knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person 
to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. I must 
add, that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see 
ample justice done to the army than I do; and, as far as 
my powers and influence, in a constitutional way, extend, 
they shall be employed to the extent of my abilities to 
effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure 
you, then, if you have any regard for your country, con- 
cern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to ban- 
ish these thoughts from your mind and never communi- 
cate, as from yourself to any one else, a sentiment of the 
like nature.^ 

The turmoil of the army continued throughout 
the year and into the next. The so-called "New- 
burgh Address" set forth the quarrel of the soldiers 
and Washington's discreet reply. On April 19, 1783, 
the eighth anniversary of the first fighting at Con- 
cord, a proclamation was issued to the American 
army announcing the ofiicial end of all hostilities. 
In June Washington issued a circular letter to the 
Governors of the States, bidding them farewell and 
urging them to guard their precious country. Many 
of the American troops were allowed to go home on 

» Sparks, 355. 



136 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

furlough. In company with Governor Clinton, he 
went up the Hudson to Ticonderoga and then west- 
ward to Fort Schuyler. Being invited by Congress, 
which was then sitting at Annapolis, he journeyed 
thither. Before he left New York City arrangements 
were made for a formal farewell to his comrades in 
arms. I quote the description of it from Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall's "Life of Washington": 

This affecting interview took place on the 4th of De- 
cember. At noon, the principal officers of the army as- 
sembled at Frances' tavern; soon after which, their 
beloved commander entered the room. His emotions 
were too strong to be concealed. Filling a glass, he 
turned to them and said, "with a heart full of love and 
gratitude, I now take leave of you ; I most devoutly wish 
that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy, 
as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." 
Having drunk, he added, " I cannot come to each of you 
to take my leave, but shall be obliged to you, if each of 
you will come and take me by the hand." General Knox, 
being nearest, turned to him. Incapable of utterance, 
Washington grasped his hand, and embraced him. In 
the same affectionate manner, he took leave of each suc- 
ceeding officer. In every eye was the tear of dignified 
sensibility; and not a word was articulated to interrupt 
the majestic silence and the tenderness of the scene. 
Leaving the room, he passed through the corps of light 
infantry, and walked to White hall, where a barge 
waited to convey him to Powles' hook (Paulus Hook). 
The whole company followed in mute and solemn pro- 
cession, with dejected countenances, testifying feelings 
of delicious melancholy, which no language can describe. 
Having entered the barge, he turned to the company; 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 137 

and waving his hat, bade them a silent adieu. They 
paid him the same affectionate compHment, and after 
the barge had left them, returned in the same solemn 
manner to the place where they had assembled.^ 

Marshall's description, simple but not common- 
place, reminds one of Ville-Hardouin's pictures, so 
terse, so rich in color, of the Barons of France in the 
Fifth Crusade. The account once read, you can 
never forget that majestic, silent figure of Wash- 
ington being rowed across to Paulus Hook with no 
sound but the dignified rhythm of the oars. Not a 
cheer, not a word ! 

His reception by Congress took place on Tuesday, 
the twenty-third of December, at twelve o'clock. 
Again I borrow from Chief Justice Marshall's ac- 
count: 

When the hour arrived for performing a ceremony so 
well calculated to recall to the mind the various inter- 
esting scenes which had passed since the commission 
now to be returned was granted, the gallery was crowded 
with spectators, and many respectable persons, among 
whom were the legislative and executive characters of 
the state, several general officers, and the consul general 
of France, were admitted on the floor of Congress. 

The representatives of the sovereignty of the union 
remained seated and covered. The spectators were 
standing and uncovered. The General was introduced 
by the secretary and conducted to a chair. After a de- 
cent interval, silence was commanded, and a short pause 

^ Marshall, iv, 561. 



138 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ensued. The Presideit (General Mifflin) then informed 
him that "the United States in Congress assembled were 
prepared to receive his communications." With a na- 
tive dignity improved by the solemnity of the occasion, 
the General rose and delivered the following address: 

^' Mr. President: 

"The great events on which my resignation depended, 
having at length taken place, I have now the honor of 
offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of 
presenting myself before them, to surrender into their 
hands the trust committed to me and to claim the in- 
dulgence of retiring from the service of my country. 

"Happy in the confirmation of our independence and 
sovereignty and pleased with the opportunity afforded 
the United States, of becoming a respectable nation, 
I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted 
with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish 
so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a 
confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of 
the supreme power of the union, and the patronage of 
heaven. 

"The successful termination of the war has verified 
the most sanguine expectations ; and my gratitude for the 
interposition of Providence, and the assistance I have 
received from my countrymen, increases with every 
review of the momentous contest. 

"While I repeat my obligations to the army in gen- 
eral, I should do injustice to my own feelings not to ac- 
knowledge in this place, the peculiar services and dis- 
tinguished merits of the gentlemen who have been 
attached to my person during the war. It was impossi- 
ble the choice of confidential officers to compose my 
family should have been more fortunate. Permit me, 
sir, to recommend in particular, those who have con- 
tinued in the service to the present moment, as worthy 
of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress, 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 139 

"I consider it as an indispensable duty to close this 
last act of my official life, by commending the interests 
of our dearest country, to the protection of Almighty 
God, and those who have the superintendence of them 
to his holy keeping. 

"Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire 
from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affec- 
tionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders 
I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and 
take my leave of all the employments of public life." 

After advancing to the chair, and delivering his com- 
mission to the President, he returned to his place, and 
received standing, the answer of Congress which was 
delivered by the President. In the course of his remarks, 
General Mifflin said: 

" Having defended the standard of liberty in this new 
world : having taught a new lesson useful to those who 
inflict, and to those who feel oppression, you retire from 
the great theatre of action, with the blessings of your 
fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues will not 
terminate with your military command : it will continue 
to animate remotest ages." ^ 

The meeting then broke up, and Washington de- 
parted. He went that same afternoon to Virginia 
and reached Mount Vernon in the evening. We can 
imagine with what satisfaction and gratitude he, to 
whom home w^as the dearest place in the world, re- 
turned to the home he had seen only once by chance 
since the beginning of the Revolution, eight years 
before. Probably few of those who had risen to the 
highest station in their country said, and felt more 

* Marshall, iv, 563. 



140 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

honestly, that they were grateful at being allowed 
by Fate to retire from office, than did Washington. 
To be relieved of responsibility, free from the hourly 
spur, day and night, of planning and carr>''ing out, 
of trying to find food for starving soldiers, of leading 
forlorn hopes against the truculent enemy, must 
have seemed to the weary and war-worn General 
like a call from the Hesperides. Men of his iron 
nature, and of his capacity for work and joy in it, do 
not, of course, really delight in idleness. They may 
think that they crave idleness, but in reality they 
crave the power of going on. 

It took comparatively little effort for Washington 
to fall into his old way of life at Mount Vernon, al- 
though there, too, much was changed. Old buildings 
had fallen out of repair. There were new experiments 
to be tried, and the general purpose to be carried out 
of making Mount Vernon a model place in that part 
of the country. Whether he would or not, he was 
sought for almost daily by persons who came from 
all parts of the United States, and from overseas. 
Hospitality being not merely a duty, but a passion 
with him, he gladly received the strangers and 
learned much from them. From their accounts of 
their interviews we see that, although he was really 
the most natural of men, some of them treated him 
as if he were some strange creature — a holy white 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 141 

elephant of Slam, or the Grand Lama of Tibet. Age 
had brought its own deductions and reservations. It 
does not appear that parties rode to hounds after 
the fox any more at Mount Vernon. And then 
there were the irreparable gaps that could not be 
filled. At Belvoir, where his neighbors the Fair- 
faxes, friends of a lifetime, used to live, they lived 
no more. One of them, more than ninety years old, 
had turned his face to the wall on hearing of the 
surrender at Yorktown. Another had gone back to 
England to live out his life there, true to his Tory 
convictions. 

Washington had sincerely believed, no doubt, that 
he was to spend the rest of his life in dignified leisure, 
and especially that he would mix no more in political 
or public worries; but he soon found that he had 
deceived himself. The army, until it ofificially dis- 
banded at the end of 1783, caused him constant 
anxiety interspersed with fits of indignation over 
the indifference and inertia of the Congress, which 
showed no intention of being just to the soldiers. 
The reason for its attitude seems hard to state posi- 
tively. May it be that the Congress, jealous since 
the war began of being ruled by the man on horse- 
back, feared at its close to grant Washington's 
demands for it lest they should bring about the very 
thing they had feared and avoided — the creation of 



142 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

a military dictatorship under Washington? W^hen 
Vergennes proposed to entrust to Washington a new- 
subsidy from France, the Congress had taken um- 
brage and regarded such a proposal as an insult to 
the American Government. Should they admit that 
the Government itself was not sufficiently sound and 
trustworthy, and that, therefore, a private individ- 
ual, even though he had been a leader of the Revolu- 
tion, must be called into service? 

From among persons pestered by this obsession, 
it was not surprising that the idea should spring up 
that Washington was at heart a believer in monarchy 
and that he might, when the opportunity favored, 
allow himself to be proclaimed king. Several years 
later he wrote to his trusted friend, John Jay: 

I am told that even respectable characters speak of 
a monarchical form of government without horror. From 
thinking proceeds speaking; thence to acting is often but 
a single step. But how irrevocable and tremendous! 
What a triumph for our enemies to verify their predic- 
tions! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism 
to find, that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and 
that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are 
merely ideal and fallacious! Would to God, that wise 
measures may be taken in time to avert the conse- 
quences we have but too much reason to apprehend.^ 

In the renewal of his life at Mount Vernon, Wash- 
ington gave almost as much attention to the culti- 

^ Hapgood, 285. 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 143 

vation of friendship as to that of his estate. He 
pursued with great zest the career of planter-farmer. 
"I think," he wrote a friend, "with you, that the 
life of a husbandman of all others is the most delec- 
table. It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judi- 
cious management, it is profitable. To see plants 
rise from the earth and flourish by the superior skill 
and bounty of the laborer fills a contemplative mind 
with ideas which are more easy to be conceived than 
expressed." ^ 

The cultivation of his friendships he carried on by 
letters and by entertaining his friends as often as he 
could at Mount Vernon. To Benjamin Harrison he 
wrote: "My friendship is not in the least lessened by 
the diff'erence, which has taken place in our political 
sentiments, nor is my regard for you diminished by 
the part you have acted." ^ 

How constantly the flock of guests frequented 
Mount Vernon we can infer from this entry in his 
diary for June 30, 1785: "Dined with only Mrs. 
Washington which, I believe, is the first instance of 
it since my retirement from public life." To his 
young friend Lafayette he wrote without reserve in 
a vein of deep affection: 

At length, my dear Marquis, I am become a private 
citizen on the banks of the Potomac; and under the 

» Hapgood, 288. » Ibid., 289. 



144 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from 
the bustle of a camp, and the busy scenes of public life, 
I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of 
which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame, the 
statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are 
spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his 
own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe 
was insufficient for us all, and the courtier, who is al- 
ways watching the countenance of his prince, in hopes 
of catching a gracious smile, can have very little con- 
ception. I have not only retired from all public employ- 
ments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able 
to view the solitary walk, and tread the paths of private 
life, with heartful satisfaction. Envious of none, I am 
determined to be pleased with all; and this, my dear 
friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently 
down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers.^ 

In September, 1784, he made a journey on horse- 
back, with a pack-train to carry his tents and food, 
into the Northwestern country, which had especially 
interested him since the early days when Fort Du- 
quesne was the goal of his wandering. He observed 
very closely and his mind was filled with large im- 
aginings of what the future would see in the develop- 
ment of the Northwest. Since his youth he had 
never lost the conviction that an empire would 
spring up there; only make the waterways easy and 
safe and he felt sure that a very large commerce 
would result and with it the extension of civilization. 
In a memorial to the legislature he urged that Vir- 
* Hapgood, 287. 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 145 

ginia was the best placed geographically of all the 
States to undertake the work of establishing con- 
nection with the States of the Northwest, and he 
suggested various details which, when acted upon 
later, proved to be, as Sparks remarked, "the first 
suggestion of the great system of internal improve- 
ments which has since been pursued in the United 
States." 

On returning to Mount Vernon, he entertained 
Lafayette for the last time before he sailed for France. 
After he had gone, Washington wrote him this 
letter in which appears the affection of a friend and 
the reverie of an old man looking somewhat wist- 
fully towards sunset, "and after that the dark": 

In the moment of our separation, upon the road as I 
travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, 
respect, and attachment for you, with which length of 
years, close connection, and your merits have inspired 
me. I often asked myself as our carriages separated, 
whether that was the last sight I ever should have of 
you? And, though I wished to say No, my fears an- 
swered Yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, and 
found they had long since fled to return no more; that 
I was now descending the hill I had been fifty-two years 
climbing, and that, though I was blest with a good con- 
stitution, I was of a short-lived family and might soon 
expect to be entombed in the mansion of my fathers. 
These thoughts darkened the shades, and gave a gloom 
to the picture, and consequently to my prospect of see- 
ing you again. 



146 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

We should not overlook the fact that Washington 
declined all gifts, including a donation from Virginia, 
for his services as General during the war. He had 
refused to take any pay, merely keeping a strict ac- 
count of what he spent for the Government from 
1775 to 1782. This amounted to over £15,000 and 
covered only sums actually disbursed by him for the 
army. Unlike Marlborough, Nelson, and Welling- 
ton, and other foreign chieftains on whom grateful 
countrymen conferred fortunes and high titles, 
Washington remains as the one great state-founder 
who literally gave his services to his country. 

Sparks gives the following interesting account of 
the way in which Washington spent his days after 
his return to Mount Vernon: 

His habits were uniform, and nearly the same as they 
had been previous to the war. He rose before the sun and 
employed himself in his study, writing letters or read- 
ing, till the hour of breakfast. When breakfast was over, 
his horse was ready at the door, and he rode to his farms 
and gave directions for the day to the managers and 
laborers. Horses were likewise prepared for his guests, 
whenever they chose to accompany him, or to amuse 
themselves by excursions into the country. Returning 
from his fields, and despatching such business as hap- 
pened to be on hand, he went again to his study, and con- 
tinued there till three o'clock, when he was summoned to 
dinner. The remainder of the day and the evening were 
devoted to company, or to recreation in the family circle. 
At ten he retired to rest. From these habits he seldom 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 147 

deviated, unless compelled to do so by particular cir- 
cumstances.^ 

This list does not include the item which Wash- 
ington soon found the greatest of his burdens — 
letter-writing. His correspondence increased rapidly 
and to an enormous extent. 

Many mistakenly think [he writes to Richard Henry 
Lee] that I am retired to ease, and to that kind of tran- 
quility which would grow tiresome for want of employ- 
ment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years 
I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much 
myself, as I have done since my retirement. ... It is 
not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, 
or add aught to my perplexity. It is references to old 
matters, with which I have nothing to do; applications 
which often cannot be complied with; inquiries which 
would require the pen of a historian to satisfy ; letters of 
compliment as unmeaning perhaps as they are trouble- 
some, but which must be attended to; and the common- 
place business which employs my pen and my time often 
disagreeably. These, with company, deprive me of ex- 
ercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive 
of disagreeable consequences.^ 

When we remember that Washington used to 
write most of his letters himself, and that from boy- 
hood his handwriting was beautifully neat, almost 
like copper-plate, in its precision and elegance, we 
shall understand what a task it must have been for 
him to keep up his correspondence. A little later he 
* Sparks, 389, 390. 2 Irving, iv, 466. 



148 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

employed a young New Hampshire graduate of 
Harvard, Tobias Lear, who graduated in 1783, who 
served him as secretary until his death, and un- 
doubtedly lightened the epistolary cares of the Gen- 
eral. But Washington continued to carry on much 
of the letter-writing, especially the intimate, him- 
self; and, like the Adamses and other statesmen of 
that period, he kept letter-books which contained 
the first drafts or copies of the letters sent. 

Another source of annoyance, to which, however, 
he resigned himself as contentedly as he could, was 
the work of the artists who came to him to beg him 
to sit for his picture or statue. Of the painters the 
most eminent were Charles Peale and his son Rem- 
brandt. Of the sculptors Houdon undoubtedly made 
the best life-sized statue — that which still adorns 
the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia — and from the 
time it was first exhibited has been regarded as the 
best, most lifelike. Another, sitting statue, was made 
for the State of North Carolina by the Italian, 
Canova, the most celebrated of the sculptors of that 
day. The artist shows a Roman costume, a favorite 
of his, unless, as in the case of Napoleon, he preferred 
complete nudity. This statue was much injured in a 
fire which nearly consumed the Capitol at Raleigh. 
The English sculptor, Chantrey, executed a third 
statue in which Washington was represented in mili- 





^^^^ 



^^2^.^>^S^ 



THE ATHEN^UM PORTRAIT 
By Gilbert Stuart 



WASHINGTON RETURNS TO PEACE 149 

tary dress. This work used to be shown at the State 
House in Boston. 

Of the many painted portraits of Washington, 
those by Gilbert Stuart have come to be accepted as 
authentic; especially the head in the painting which 
hung in the Boston Athenseum as a pendant to that 
of Martha Washington, and is now in the Boston 
Museum of Fine Arts. But as I remarked earlier, the 
fact that none of the painters indicate the very strong 
marks of smallpox (which he took on his trip to Bar- 
bados) on Washington's face creates a natural suspi- 
cion as to accuracy in detail of any of the portraits. 
Perhaps the divergence among them is not greater 
than that among those of Mary, Queen of Scots, and 
indicates only the marked incapacity of some of the 
painters who did them. We are certainly justified in 
saying that Washington's features varied consider- 
ably from his early prime to the days when he was 
President. We have come to talk about him as an 
old man because from the time when he was sixty 
years old he frequently used that expression himself; 
although, as he died at sixty-seven, he was never 
really "an old man." One wonders whether those 
who lived among pioneer conditions said and hon- 
estly believed that they were old at the time when, 
as we think, middle age would hardly have begun. 
Thus Abraham Lincoln writes of himself as a patri- 



150 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

arch, and no doubt sincerely thought that he was, at 
a time when he had just reached forty. The two 
features in Washington's face about which the por- 
traitists differ most are his nose and his mouth. 
In the early portrait by Charles Peale, his nose is 
slightly aquiline, but not at all so massive and con- 
spicuous as in some of the later works. His mouth, 
and with it the expression of the lower part of his 
face, changed after he began to wear false teeth. Is 
it not fair to suppose that the efhgies of Washington, 
made in later years and usually giving him a some- 
what stiff and expansive grin, originated in the fact 
that his false set of teeth lacked perfect adjustment.'* 
Thus Washington dropped into the ways of peace; 
working each day what would have been a long stint 
for a strong young man, and thinking, besides, more 
than most men thought of the needs and future of 
the country to which he had given liberty and in- 
dependence. His chief anxiety henceforth was that 
the United States of America should not miss the 
great destiny for which he believed the Lord had 
prepared it. 



CHAPTER VIII 
WELDING THE NATION 

THE doubt, the drifting, the incongruities and 
inconsistencies, the mistakes and follies which 
marked the five years after 1783 form what has been 
well called "The Critical Period of American His- 
tory." They proved that the conquests of peace may 
not only be more difficult than the conquests of war, 
but that they may outlast those of war. Who should 
be the builders of the Ship of State? Those who had 
courage and clear vision, w^ho loved justice, who 
were patient and humble and unflagging, and who 
believed with an ineluctable conviction that right- 
eousness exalteth a nation; they were the simple fish- 
ermen who in the little church at Torcello predicted 
the splendor and power of Venice; they were the 
stern pioneers of Plymouth and Boston who laid the 
foundations of an empire greater than that of Rome. 
It happened that during the American Revolution 
and immediately afterward, a larger number of such 
men existed in what had been the American Colonies 
than anywhere else at any other time in history. At 
the beginning of the Revolution, within a few weeks 
of the Declaration of Independence, some of these 



152 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

men, impelled by a common instinct, adopted Arti- 
cles of Confederation which should hold the former 
Colonies together and enable them to maintain a 
common front against the enemy during the war. 
The Congress controlled military and civic affairs, 
but the framers of the Articles were wary and too 
timid to grant the Congress sufficient powers, with the 
result that Washington, who embodied the dynamic 
control of the war, was always most inadequately 
supported ; and as he fared, so fared his subordinates. 
At the end of the war the Americans found that 
they had won, not only freedom, but also Independ- 
ence, the desire for which was not among their 
original motives. Each of the thirteen States was 
independent; they all felt the need of a union which 
would enable them to protect themselves; of a com- 
mon coinage and postage; of certain common laws 
for criminal and similar cases; of a common govern- 
ment to direct their affairs with other nations. But 
by habit and by training each was local rather than 
National in its outlook. The Georgian had nothing 
in common with the men of Massachusetts Bay 
whose livelihood depended upon fisheries, or with the 
Virginian of the Western border, to whom his relations 
with the Indians were his paramount concern. The 
Rhode Islander, busy with his manufactures, knew 
and cared nothing for the South Carolinian with his 



WELDING THE NATION 153 

rice plantations. How to find a common denomina- 
tor for all these? That was the business of them 
all. 

The one thing which Washington regarded as 
likely and against which he wished to have every 
precaution taken, was a possible attempt of the Eng- 
lish to pick a quarrel over some small matter and 
bring on a renewal of the war. Fortunately for the 
Americans, this did not happen. Washington knew 
our weakness so well that he could see how easy it 
would be for a bold and determined enemy to do us 
great if not fatal harm. But he did not know that 
the English themselves were in an almost desperate 
plight. By Rodney's decisive victory at sea they be- 
gan to recover their ascendancy against the Coalition, 
but it was then too late to disavow the treaty. In 
Parliament George III had been defeated; the defeat 
meaning a very serious check to the policy which he 
had pursued for more than twenty years to fix royal 
tyranny on the British people. King George's system 
of personal government, himself being the person, 
had broken down and he could not revive it. Nearly 
seventy years were to elapse before Queen Victoria, 
who was as putty in the hands of her German hus- 
band, Prince Albert, rejoiced that he had restored 
the personal power of the British sovereign to a pitch 
it had not known since her grandfather George III. 



154 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

The American Revolution had illusti-ated the 
fatal weakness of the Congress as an organ of govern- 
ment, and the Articles merely embodied the vague- 
ness of the American people in regard to any real 
regime. The Congress has been much derided for its 
shortcomings and its blunders, although in truth not 
so much the Congress, as those who made it, was to 
blame. They had refused, in their timidity, to give 
it power to exercise control. It might not compel or 
enforce obedience. It did require General Washing- 
ton during the war to furnish a regular report of his 
military actions and it put his suggestions on file 
where many of them grew yellow and dusty ; but he 
might not strike, do that decisive act by which his- 
tory is born. Their timidity made them see what he 
had accomplished not nearly so plainly as the dicta- 
tor on horseback whom their fears conjured up. 

During the war the sense of a common danger had 
lent the Congress a not easily defined but quite real 
coherence, which vanished when peace came, and the 
local ideals of the States took precedence. Take 
taxation. Congress could compute the quota of taxes 
which each State ought to pay, but it had no way 
of collecting or of enforcing payment. It took eight- 
een months to collect five per cent of the taxes laid 
in 1783. Of course a nation could not go on with 
such methods. No law binding all the States could 



WELDING THE NATION 155 

be adopted unless every one of the thirteen States 
assented. Unanimity was almost unattainable; as 
when Governor Clinton of New York withheld his 
approval of a measure to improve a system of taxa- 
tion to which the other twelve States had assented; 
so Rhode Island, the smallest of all, blocked another 
reform which twelve States had approved. Our 
foreign relations must be described as ignominious. 
Jefferson had taken Franklin's place as Minister to 
France, but we had no credit and he could not secure 
the loan he was seeking. John Adams in London, 
and John Jay in Madrid, were likewise balked. Jay 
had to submit to the closing of the lower Mississippi 
to American shipping. He did this in the hope of 
thereby conciliating Spain to make a commercial 
treaty which he thought was far more important than 
shipping. Our people in the Southwest, however, re- 
garded the closing of the river as portending their 
ruin, and they threatened to secede if it were persisted 
in. Pennsylvania and New Jersey threw their weight 
with the Southerners and Congress voted against 
the Jay treaty. That was the time when the cor- 
sairs of the Barbary States preyed upon American 
shipping in the Mediterranean and seized crews of 
our vessels and sold them into slavery in Northern 
Africa. That there was not in the thirteen States 
sufficient feeling of dignity to resent and punish 



156 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

these outrages marks both their dispersed power and 
lack of regard for National honor. 

After 1783 the States, virtually bankrupt at home, 
discordant, fickle, and aimless, and without credit or 
prestige abroad, were filled with many citizens who 
recognized that the system was bad and must be 
amended. The wise among them wrote treatises on 
the remedies they proposed. The wisest went to 
school of experience and sought in history how con- 
federations and other political unions had fared. 
Washington wrote for his own use an account of the 
classical constitutions of Greece and Rome and of 
the more modern states; of the Amphictyonic Coun- 
cil among the ancient, and the Helvetic, Belgic, and 
Germanic among the more recent. John Adams 
devoted two massive volumes to an account of the 
medieval Italian republics. James Madison studied 
the Achaian League and other ancient combinations. 
There were many other men less eminent than these 
— there was a Peletiah Webster, for instance. 

Washington viewed the situation as a pessimist. 
Was it because the high hopes that he had held 
during the war, that America should be the noblest 
among the nations, had been disappointed, or was 
it because he saw farther into the future than his 
colleagues saw? On May 18, 1786, he writes inti- 
mately to John Jay: 



WELDING THE NATION 157 

. . . We are certainly in a delicate situation; but my 
fear is that the people are not yet sufficiently misled to 
retract from error. To be plainer, I think there is more 
wickedness than ignorance mixed in our councils. Un- 
der this impression I scarcely know what opinion to 
entertain of a general convention. That it is necessary 
to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation, I 
entertain no doubt; but what may be the consequences 
of such an attempt is doubtful. Yet something must be 
done, or the fabric must fall, for it certainly is tottering. 

Ignorance and design are difficult to combat. Out of 
these proceed illiberal sentiments, improper jealousies, 
and a train of evils which oftentimes in republican gov- 
ernments must be sorely felt before they can be re- 
moved. The former, that is ignorance, being a fit soil 
for the latter to work in, tools are employed by them 
which a generous mind would disdain to use; and which 
nothing but time, and their own puerile or wicked pro- 
ductions, can show the inefficacy and dangerous tend- 
ency of. I think often of our situation, and view it 
with concern. From the high ground we stood upon, 
from the plain path which invited our footsteps, to be 
so fallen! so lost! it is really mortifying.^ 

One of the chief causes of the discontents which 
troubled the public was the increasing number of 
persons who had been made debtors after the war 
by the more and more pressing demands of their 
creditors. These debtors knew nothing about eco- 
nomics ; they only knew that they were being crushed 
by persons more lucky than themselves. In Massa- 
chusetts they broke out in actual rebellion named 
* Ford, XI, 31. 



158 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

after the man who led it, Daniel Shays. They were 
put down by the more or less doubtful appeal to 
veterans of the National Army, but their ebullition 
was not forgotten as a symptom of a very dangerous 
condition. In 1786 representatives from five States 
met in a convention at Annapolis to consider the 
hard times and the troubles in trade. Washington, 
Hamilton, and Madison were thought to be behind 
the convention, which accomplished little, but made 
it clear that a large general convention ought to 
meet and to discuss the way of securing a strong 
central government. This convention was discussed 
during that summer and autumn, and a call was 
issued for a meeting in the following spring at Phila- 
delphia. Virginia turned first to Washington to be 
one of its delegates, but he had sincere scruples 
against entering public life again. He wrote to 
James Madison on November i8th: 

Although I had bid adieu to the public walks of life 
in a public manner, and had resolved never more to 
tread upon public ground, yet if, upon an occasion 
so interesting to the well-being of the confederacy, it 
should have appeared to have been the wish of the As- 
sembly to have employed me with other associates in 
the business of revising the federal system, I should, 
from a sense of obligation I am under for repeated proof 
of confidence in me, more than from any opinion I should 
have entertained of my usefulness, have obeyed its call ; 
but it is now out of my power to do so with any degree 
of consistency.^ 

1 Ford, XI, 87. 



WELDING THE NATION 159 

Washington's disinclination to abandon the quiet 
of Mount Vernon and the congenial work he found 
there, and to be plunged again into political labors, 
was perhaps his strongest reason for making this deci- 
sion. But a temporary aggravation ruled him. The 
Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was president, 
had aroused much odium in the country among those 
who were jealous or envious that such a special privi- 
leged class should exist, and among those who really 
believed that it had the secret design of establishing 
an aristocracy if not actually a monarchy. Wash- 
ington held that its original avowed purpose, to keep 
the officers who had served in the Revolution to- 
gether, would perpetuate the patriotic spirit which 
enabled them to win, and might be a source of 
strength in case of further ordeals. But when he 
found that public sentiment ran so strongly against 
the Cincinnati, he withdrew as its president and he 
told Madison that he would vote to have the Society 
disbanded if it were not that it counted a minority 
of foreign members. Stronger than a desire for a 
private life and for the ease of Mount Vernon was 
his sense of duty as a patriot; so that when this was 
strongly urged upon him he gave way and con- 
sented. 

Spring came, the snows melted in the Northern 
States, and through the month of April the delegates 



i6o GEORGE WASHINGTON 

to this Convention started from their homes in the 
North and in the South for Philadelphia. The first 
regular session was held on May 25th, although some 
of the delegates did not arrive until several weeks 
later. They sat in Independence Hall in the same 
room where, eleven years before, the Declaration of 
Independence had been adopted and signed. Of the 
members in the new Convention, George Washing- 
ton was easily the first. His commanding figure, tall 
and straight and in no wise impaired by eight years' 
campaigns and hardships, was almost the first to 
attract the attention of any one who looked upon 
that assembly. He was fifty-five years old. Next in 
reputation was the patriarch, Benjamin Franklin, 
twenty-seven years his senior, shrewd, wise, poised, 
tart, good-natured; whose prestige was thought to 
be sufficient to make him a worthy presiding officer 
when Washington was not present. James Madison 
of Virginia was among the young men of the Con- 
vention, being only thirty-six years old, and yet 
almost at the top of them all in constitutional learn- 
ing. More precocious still was Alexander Hamilton 
of New York, who was only thirty, one of the most 
remarkable examples of a statesman who developed 
very early and whom Death cut off before he showed 
any signs of a decline. One figure we miss — that 
of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, tall and wiry and 



WELDING THE NATION i6i 

red-curled, who was absent in Paris as Minister to 
France. 

Massachusetts sent four representatives, impor- 
tant but not preeminent — Elbridge Gerry, Na- 
thaniel Gorham, Rufus King, and Caleb Strong. 
New York had only two besides Hamilton; Robert 
Yates and John Lansing. Pennsylvania trusted 
most to Benjamin Franklin, but she sent the finan- 
cier of the Revolution, Robert Morris, and Gouver- 
neur Morris; and with them went Thomas Mifflin, 
George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Inger- 
soll, James Wilson — all conspicuous public men at 
the time, although their fame is bedraggled or quite 
faded now. Wilson ranked as the first lawyer of the 
group. Of the five from little Delaware sturdy John 
Dickinson, a man who thought, was no negligible 
quantity. 

Connecticut also had as spokesmen two strong 
individualities — Roger Sherman and Oliver Ells- 
worth. Maryland spoke through James McHenry 
and Daniel Carroll and three others of greater ob- 
scurity. Virginia had George Washington, President 
of the Convention, and James Madison, active, re- 
sourceful, and really accomplishing; and in addition 
to these two: Edmund Randolph, the Governor; 
George Mason, Washington's hard-headed and dis- 
creet lawyer friend; John Blair, George Wythe, and 



1 62 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

James McClurg. From South Carolina went three 
unusual orators, John Rutledge, C. C. Pinckney and 
Charles Pinckney, and Pierce Butler. Georgia named 
four mediocre but useful men. 

In this gathering of fifty-five persons, the propor- 
tion between those who were preeminent for com- 
mon sense and those who were remarkable for special 
knowledge and talents was very fairly kept. Most 
of them had had experience in dealing with men 
either in local government offices or in the army. 
Socially, they came almost without exception from 
respectable if not aristocratic families. Of the fifty- 
five, twenty-nine were university or college bred, 
their universities comprising Oxford, Glasgow, and 
Edinburgh besides the American Harvard, William 
and Mary, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. The two 
foremost members, W^ashington and Franklin, were 
not college bred. Among the fifty- five we do not find 
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who, as I have 
said, were in Europe on official business. John Jay 
also was lacking, because, as it appears, the Anti- 
Federalists did not wish him to represent them in 
the Convention; but his influence permeated it and 
the wider public, who later read his unsigned articles 
in "The Federalist." Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, 
and Richard Henry Lee stayed at home. General 
Nathanael Greene, the favorite son of Rhode Island, 



WELDING THE NATION 163 

would have been at the Convention but for his un- 
timely death a few weeks before the preceding 
Christmas. 

Owing to delays the active business of the Con- 
vention halted, although for at least a fortnight the 
members who had come promptly carried on un- 
official discussions. Washington, being chosen Pres- 
ident without a competitor, presided, with perhaps 
more than his habitual gravity and punctilio. The 
members took their work very seriously. The debates 
lasted five or six hours a day, and, as they were con- 
tinued consecutively until the autumn, there was 
ample time to discuss many subjects. The Conven- 
tion adopted strict secrecy as its rule, so that its pro- 
ceedings were not known by the public nor was any 
satisfactory report of them kept and published. At 
the time there was objection to this provision, and 
now, after more than a century and a third, we must 
regret that we can never know many points in re- 
gard to the actual give and take of discussion in this 
the most fateful of all assemblies. But from Madi- 
son's memoranda and reminiscences we can infer a 
good deal as to what went on. 

The wisdom of keeping the proceedings secret was 
fully justified. The framers of the Constitution 
knew that it was to a large degree a new experiment, 
that it would be subjected to all kinds of criticism, 



i64 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

but that it must be judged by its entirety and not by 
its parts; and that therefore it must be presented 
entire. At the outset some of the members, fore- 
seeing opposition, were for suggesting palHatives 
and for sugar-coating. Some of the measures they 
feared might excite hostiHty. To these suggestions 
Washington made a brief but very noble remon- 
strance which seemed deeply to impress his hearers. 
And no one could question that it gave the keynote 
on which he hoped to maintain the business of the 
Convention. " It is too probable that no plan we pro- 
pose will be adopted," Washington said very gravely. 
" Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. 
If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves 
disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? 
Let us raise a standard to which the wise and hon- 
est can repair; the event is in the hand of God."^ 
Among the obstacles which seemed very serious — and 
many believed they would wreck the Convention — 
was the question of slavery. By this time all the 
northern part of the country favored its abolition. 
Even Virginia was on that side. For practical plant- 
ers like George Washington knew that it was the 
most costly and least productive form of labor. 
They opposed it on economic rather than moral 
grounds. Farther South, however, especially in 
^ Fiske, Critical Period, 250. 



WELDING THE NATION 165 

South Carolina where the negroes seemed to be the 
only kind of laborers for the rice-fields, and in those 
regions where they harvested the cotton, the whites 
insisted that slavery should be maintained. The 
contest seemed likely to be very fierce between the 
disputants, and then, with true Anglo-Saxon instinct, 
they sought for a compromise. The South had re- 
garded slaves as chattels. The compromise brought 
forward by Madison consisted in agreeing that five 
slaves should count in population as three. By this 
curious device a negro was equivalent to three fifths 
of a white man. Such a compromise was, of course, 
illogical, leaving the question whether negroes were 
chattels or human beings with even a theoretical 
civil character undecided. But many of the mem- 
bers, who saw the illogic quite plainly, voted for it, 
being dazzled if not seduced by the thought that it 
was a compromise which would stave off an irrecon- 
cilable conflict at least for the present; so Washing- 
ton, who wished the abolition of slavery, voted for 
the compromise along with Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney, the South Carolinian who regarded slav- 
ery as higher than any of the Ten Commandments. 
The second compromise referred to the slave 
trade, which was particularly defended by South 
Carolina and Georgia. The raising of rice and in- 
digo in those States caused an increasing death-rate 



i66 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

among the slaves. The slave trade, which brought 
many kidnapped slaves from Africa to those States 
was needed to replenish the number of slaves who 
died. Virginia had not yet become an important 
breeding-place of slaves who were sold to planters 
farther south. The members of the Convention 
who wished to put an end to this hideous traffic pro- 
posed that it should be prohibited, and that the en- 
forcement of the prohibition should be assigned to 
the General Government. Pinckney, however, keen 
to defend his privileged institution and the special 
interests of his State, bluntly informed the Con- 
vention that if they voted to abolish the slave trade. 
South Carolina would regard it as a polite way of 
telling her that she was not wanted in the new 
Union. To think of attempting to form a Union 
without South Carolina amazed them all and made 
them pliable. Although there was considerable op- 
position to giving the General Government control 
over shipping, this provision was passed. The 
Northerners saw in it the germs of a tariff act which 
would benefit their manufacturers, and they agreed 
that the slave trade should not be interfered with 
before 1808 and that no export tax should be au- 
thorized. 

The third compromise affected representation. 
The Convention had already voted that the Con- 



WELDING THE NATION 167 

gress should consist of two parts, a Senate and a 
House of Representatives. By a really clever device 
each State sent two members to the Senate, thus 
equalizing the small and large States in that branch 
of the Government. The House, on the other hand, 
represented the People, and the number of members 
elected from each State corresponded, therefore, to 
the population. 

As I do not attempt to make even a summary of 
the details of the Convention, I should pass over 
many of the other topics which it considered, often 
with very heated discussion. The fundamental prob- 
lem was how to preserve the rights of the States and 
at the same time give the Central Government suf- 
ficient power. By devices which actually worked, 
and for many years continued to work, this conflict 
was smoothed over, although sixty years later the 
question of State rights, intertwined with that of 
slavery, nearly split the Nation in the War of Seces- 
sion. There was much question as to the term for 
which the President should be elected and whether 
by the People or by Congress. Some were for one, two, 
three, four, ten, and even fifteen years. Rufus King, 
grown sarcastic, said: "Better call it twenty — it's 
the average reign of princes." Alexander Hamilton 
and Gouverneur Morris stood for a life service with 
provision for the President's removal in case of mal- 



i68 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

feasance. These gentlemen, in spite of their influence 
in the Convention, stirred up a deep-seated enmity 
to their plan. Few instincts were more general than 
that which drew back from any arrangement which 
might embolden the monarchists to make a man 
President for a ten or fifteen years' term or for life. 
This could not fail to encourage those who wished 
for the equivalent of an hereditary prince. The Con- 
vention soon made it evident that they would have 
none but a short term, and they chose, finally, four 
years. There was a debate over the question of his 
election ; should he be chosen directly by the legis- 
lature, or by electors? The strong men — Mason, 
Rutledge, Roger Sherman, and Strong — favored 
the former; stronger men — Washington, Madison, 
Gerry, and Gouverneur Morris — favored the latter, 
and it prevailed. Nevertheless, the Electoral College 
thus created soon became, and has remained, as use- 
less as a vermiform appendix. 

Towards the end of the summer the Convention 
had completed its first draft of the Constitution; 
then they handed their work over to a Committee for 
Style and Arrangement, composed of W. S. Johnson 
of North Carolina, Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, 
Madison, and King. Then, on September 17th, the 
Constitution of the United States was formally pub- 
lished. This document, done "by the Unanimous 



WELDING THE NATION 169 

Consent of the States present," was sent to the Gov- 
ernor or Legislature of each State with the under- 
standing that its ratification by nine States would 
be required before it was proclaimed the law of the 
land. 

In his diary for Monday, the seventeenth of Sep- 
tember, 1787, Washington makes this entry: 

Met in Convention, when the Constitution received 
the unanimous consent of 11 States and Colo. Hamil- 
ton's from New York [the only delegate from thence in 
Convention], and was subscribed to by every member 
present, except Governor Randolph and Colo. Mason 
from Virginia, & Mr. Gerry from Massachusetts. 

The business being thus closed, the members ad- 
journed to the City Tavern, dined together, and took a 
cordial leave of each other. After which I returned to 
my lodgings, did some business with, and received the 
papers from the Secretary of the Convention, and re- 
tired to meditate on the momentous wk. which had been 
executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the 
time six and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day, [ex- 
cept] Sundays & the ten days adjournment to give a 
Comee. [Committee] opportunity & time to arrange the 
business for more than four months.^ 

One likes to think of Washington presiding over 
that Convention for more than four months, see- 
ing one suggestion after another brought forward 
and debated until finally disposed of, he saying 
little except to enforce the rules of parliamentary 
1 Ford, XI, 155. 



170 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

debate. No doubt his asides (and part of his con- 
versation) frankly gave his opinion as to each meas- 
ure, because he never disguised his thoughts and he 
seems to have voted when the ballots were taken — 
a practice unusual to modern presiding officers ex- 
cept in case of a tie. His summing-up of the Con- 
stitution, which he wrote on the day after the ad- 
journment in a hurried letter to Lafayette, is given 
briefly in these lines: 

It is the result of four months' deliberation. It is now 
a child of fortune, to be fostered by some and buffeted 
by others. What will be the general opinion, or the re- 
ception of it, is not for me to decide; nor shall I say 
anything for or against it. If it be good, I suppose it 
will work its way; if bad, it will recoil on the framers. 

A month later, in the seclusion of Mount Vernon, 
he spread the same news before his friend General 
Knox: 

. . . The Constitution Is now before the judgment- 
seat. It has, as was expected, its adversaries and sup- 
porters. Which will preponderate is yet to be decided. 
The former more than probably will be most active, as 
the major part of them will, it is to be feared, be gov- 
erned by sinister and self-important motives, to which 
everything in their breasts must yield. . . . 

The other class, he said, would probably ask itself 
whether the Constitution now submitted was not 
better than the inadequate and precarious govern- 
ment under which they had been living. If there 



WELDING THE NATION 171 

were defects, as doubtless there were, did it not pro- 
vide means for amending them? Then he concludes 
with a gleam of optimism: 

... Is it not likely that real defects will be as readily 
discovered after as before trial? and will not our suc- 
cessors be as ready to apply the remedy as ourselves, if 
occasion should require it? To think otherwise will, in 
my judgment, be ascribing more of the amor patriae, 
more wisdom and more virtue to ourselves, than I 
think we deserve.^ 

Nearly five months later, February 7, 1788, he 
wrote Lafayette what we may consider a more delib- 
erate opinion: 

As to my sentiments with respect to the merits of the 
new constitution, I will disclose them without reserve, 
(although by passing through the post-ofhce they should 
become known to all the world,) for in truth I have 
nothing to conceal on that subject. It appears to me, 
then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so 
many different States (which States you know are also 
different from each other), in their manners, circum- 
stances, and prejudices, should unite in forming a sys- 
tem of national government, so little liable to well- 
founded objections. Nor am I yet such an enthusiastic, 
partial, or indiscriminating admirer of it, as not to per- 
ceive it is tinctured with some real (though not radical) 
defects. The limits of a letter would not suffer me to go 
fully into an examination of them; nor would the dis- 
cussion be entertaining or profitable. I therefore for- 
bear to touch upon it. With regard to the two great 
points (the pivots upon which the whole machine must 
move), my creed is simply, 

^ Ford, XI, 173. 



172 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

1st. That the general government is not invested with 
more powers, than are indispensably necessary to per- 
from the functions of a good government; and conse- 
quently, that no objection ought to be made against the 
quantity of power delegated to it. 

2nd. That these powers (as the appointment of all 
rulers will for ever arise from, and at short, stated inter- 
vals recur to, the free suffrage of the people), are so dis- 
tributed among the legislative, executive, and judicial 
branches, into which the general government is ar- 
ranged, that it can never be in danger of degenerating 
into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any 
other despotic or oppressive form, so long as there shall 
remain any virtue in the body of the people. 

I would not be understood, my dear Marquis, to 
speak of consequences, which may be produced in the 
revolution of ages, by corruption of morals, profligacy 
of manners and listlessness for the preservation of the 
natural and unalienable rights of mankind, nor of the 
successful usurpations, that may be established at such 
an unpropitious juncture upon the ruins of liberty, how- 
ever providently guarded and secured ; as these are con- 
tingencies against which no human prudence can effec- 
tually provide. It will at least be a recommendation to 
the proposed constitution, that it is provided with more 
checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, 
and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than 
any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath 
possessed. We are not to expect perfection in this world ; 
but mankind, in modern times, have apparently made 
some progress in the science of government. Should 
that which is now offered to the people of America, be 
found on experiment less perfect than it can be made, 
a constitutional door is left open for its amelioration.^ 

^ Ford, XI, 218-21. 



WELDING THE NATION I73 

Thus was accomplished the American Constitu- 
tion. Gladstone has said of it in well-known words 
that, just "as the British Constitution is the most 
subtle organism which has proceeded from the womb 
and the long gestation of progressive history, so the 
American Constitution is so far as I can see the most 
wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by 
the brain and purpose of man." ^ Note that Glad- 
stone does not name a single or an individual man, 
which would have been wholly untrue, for the Amer- 
ican Constitution was struck off by the wisdom and 
foresight of fifty-five men collectively. There were 
among them two or three who might be called tran- 
scendent men. It gained its peculiar value from the 
fact that it represents the composite of many diver- 
gent opinions and different characters. 

Just before the members broke up at their final 
meeting in Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin 
amused them with a characteristic bit of raillery. 
On the back of the President's black chair, a half sun 
was carved and emblazoned. "During all these 
weeks," said Franklin, "I have often wondered 
whether that sun was rising or setting. I know now 
that it is a rising sun." 

The first State to ratify the Constitution was 
Delaware, on December 6, 1787. Pennsylvania fol- 
^ W. E. Gladstone, North American Review, September, 1878. 



174 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

lowed on December 12th, and New Jersey on Decem- 
ber 1 8th. Ratifications continued without haste until 
New Hampshire, the ninth State, signed on June 21, 
1788. Four days later, Virginia, a very important 
State, ratified. New York, which had been Anti- 
Federalist throughout, joined the majority on July 
26th. North Carolina waited until November 21st, 
and little Rhode Island, the last State of all, did not 
come in until May 29, 1790. But, as the adherence 
of nine States sufBced, the afBrmative action of New 
Hampshire on June 21, 1788, constituted the legal 
beginning of the United States of America. 

No test could be more winnowing than that to 
which the Constitution was subjected during more 
than eighteen months before its adoption. In each 
State, in each section, its friends and enemies dis- 
cussed it at meetings and in private gatherings. In 
New York, for instance, it was only the persistence of 
Alexander Hamilton and his unfailing oratory, un- 
matched until then in this country, that routed the 
Anti-Federalists at Poughkeepsie and caused the 
victory of the Federalists in the State. In Virginia, 
Patrick Henry, who had said on the eve of the Rev- 
olution, "I am not a Virginian, but an American," 
still held out. Nevertheless, the more the people of 
the country discussed the matter, the surer was their 
conviction that Washington was right when he in- 



WELDING THE NATION 175 

timatcd that they must prefer the new Constitution 
unless they could show reason for supposing that the 
anarchy towards which the old order was swiftly 
driving them was preferable. 

During the autumn of 1788 peaceful electioneering 
went on throughout the country. Among the last 
acts of that thin wraith, the Continental Congress, 
was a decree that Presidential Electors should be 
chosen on the first Wednesday of January, 1789; 
that they should vote for President on the first 
Wednesday in February, and that the new Congress 
should meet on the first Wednesday in March. The 
State of New York, where Anti-Federalists swarmed, 
did not follow the decree — with the result that 
that State, which had been behindhand in signing 
the Declaration of Independence, failed through the 
intrigues of the Anti-Federalists to choose electors, 
and so had no part in the choice of Washington as 
President of the United States. The other ten States 
performed their duty on time. They elected Wash- 
ington President by a unanimous vote of sixty-nine 
out of sixty-nine votes cast. 

The Vice-Presidential contest was perplexing, 
there being many candidates who received only a 
few votes each. Many persons thought that it would 
be fitting that Samuel Adams, the father of the Rev- 
olution, should be chosen to serve with Washington, 



176 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

the father of his country; but too many remembered 
that he had been hostile to the Federalists until al- 
most the end of the preliminary canvass and so they 
did not think that he ought to be chosen. The suc- 
cessful man was John Adams, who had been a robust 
Patriot from the beginning and had served honor- 
ably and devotedly in every position which he had 
held since 1775. 

On April 14th Washington's election was notified 
to him, and on the i6th he bade farewell to Mount 
Vernon, where he had hoped to pass the rest of his 
days in peace and home duties and agriculture, and 
he rode in what proved to be a triumphal march to 
New York. That city was chosen the capital of the 
new Nation. Streams of enthusiastic and joyous 
citizens met and acclaimed him at every town 
through which he passed. At Trenton a party of 
thirteen young girls decked out in muslin and 
wreaths represented the thirteen States, and per- 
haps brought to his mind the contrast between that 
day and thirteen years before when he crossed the 
Delaware on boats amid floating cakes of ice and the 
pelting of sleet and rain. On April 23d he entered 
New York City. A week later at noon a military 
escort attended him from his lodging to Federal Hall 
at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, where a 
vast crowd awaited him. Washington stood on a 



WELDING THE NATION 177 

balcony. All could witness the ceremony. The Sec- 
retary of the Senate bore a Bible upon a velvet cush- 
ion, and Chancellor Livingston administered the 
oath of office. Washington's head was still bowed 
when Livingston shouted: "Long live George Wash- 
ington, President of the United States! " The crowds 
took up the cheer, which spread to many parts of the 
city and was repeated in all parts of the United 
States. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 

THE inauguration of Washington on April 30, 
1789, brought a new type of administration into 
the world. The democracy which it initiated was very 
different from that of antiquity, from the models of 
Greece and of Rome, and quite different from that 
of the Italian republics during the Middle Age. The 
head of the new State differed essentially from the 
monarchs across the sea. Although there were va- 
rieties of traditions and customs in what had been 
the Colonies, still their dominant characteristic was 
British. According to the social traditions of Vir- 
ginia, George Washington was an aristocrat, but in 
contrast with the British, he was a democrat. 

He believed, however, that the President must 
guard his office from the free-and-easy want of deco- 
rum which some of his countr>'men regarded as the 
stamp of democracy. At his receptions he wore a 
black velvet suit with gold buckles at the knee and 
on his shoes, and yellow gloves, and profusely pow- 
dered hair carried in a silk bag behind. In one hand 
he held a cocked hat with an ostrich plume; on his 
left thigh he wore a sword in a white scabbard 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 179 

of polished leather. He shook hands with no one; 
but acknowledged the courtesy of his visitors by a 
very formal bow. When he drove, it was in a coach 
with four or six handsome horses and outriders and 
lackeys dressed in resplendent livery. 

After his inauguration he spoke his address to the 
Congress, and several days later members of the 
House and of the Senate called on him at his resi- 
dence and made formal replies to his Inaugural 
Address. After a few weeks, experience led him to 
modify somewhat his daily schedule. He found that 
unless it was checked, the insatiate public would 
consume all his time. Every Tuesday afternoon, be- 
tween three and four o'clock, he had a public recep- 
tion which any one might attend. Likewise, on 
Friday afternoons, Mrs. Washington had receptions 
of her own. The President accepted no invitations 
to dinner, but at his own table there was an unend- 
ing succession of invited guests, except on Sunday, 
which he observed privately. Interviews with the 
President could be had at any time that suited his 
convenience. Thus did he arrange to transact his 
regular or his private business. 

Inevitably, some of the public objected to his 
rules and pretended to see very strong monarchical 
leanings in them. But the country took them as he 
intended, and there can be no doubt that it felt the 



i8o GEORGE WASHINGTON 

benefit of his promoting the dignity of his office. 
Equally beneficial was his rule of not appointing to 
any office any man merely because he was the Pres- 
ident's friend. Washington knew that such a con- 
sideration would give the candidate an unfair advan- 
tage. He knew further that office-holders who could 
screen themselves behind the plea that they were 
the President's friends might be very embarrassing 
to him. As office-seekers became, with the develop- 
ment of the Republic, among the most pernicious of 
its evils and of its infamies, we can but feel grateful 
that so far as in him lay Washington tried to keep 
them within bounds. 

In all his official acts he took great pains not to 
force his personal wishes. He knew that both in 
prestige and popularity he held a place apart among 
his countrymen, and for this reason he did not wish 
to have measures passed simply because they were 
his. Accordingly, in the matter of receiving the pub- 
lic and in granting interviews and of ceremonials at 
the Presidential Residence, he asked the advice of 
John Adams, John Jay, Hamilton, and Jefferson, 
and he listened to many of their suggestions. Colo- 
nel Humphreys, who had been one of his aides-de- 
camp and was staying in the Presidential Residence, 
acted as Chamberlain at the first reception. Hum- 
phreys took an almost childish delight in gold braid 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT i8i 

and flummery. At a given moment the door of the 
large hall in which the concourse of guests was as- 
sembled was opened and he, advancing, shouted, 
with a loud voice: "The President of the United 
States!" Washington followed him and went 
through the paces prescribed by the Colonel with 
punctilious exactness, but with evident lack of rel- 
ish. When the levee broke up and the party had 
gone, Washington said to Colonel Humphreys: 
"Well, you have taken me in once, but, by God, ' 
you shall never take me in a second time."^ Irving, 
who borrows this story from Jefferson, warns us that 
perhaps Jefferson was not a credible witness. 

C ongr ess transacted much important business at 

this first session. It determined that the President < -- 

should have a Cabinet of men whose business it was '^ 
to administer the chief departments and to advise 
the President. Next in importance were the finan- 
cial measures proposed by the Secretary of the 
Treasury. Washington chose for his first Cabinet 
Ministers: Tho mas J efferson, who had not returned 
from Paris, as Secretary of State, or Foreign Minis- 
ter as he was first called; Alexander Hamilton, Sec- 
retary of the Treasury; General Henry Knox, Secre- 
tary of War; and Edmund Randolph, Attorney- 
General. Of these, Hamilton had to face the most 

1 Irving, V, 14. 



V 



i82 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

bitter opposition. Throughout the Revolution the 
former Colonies had never been able to collect enough 
money to pay the expense of the war and the other 
charges of the Confederation. The Confederation 
handed over a considerable debt to the new Govern- 
ment. Besides this many of the States had paid each 
its own co^ of equipping and maintaining its con- 
tingent. Hamilton now proposed that the United 
States Government should assume these various 
State debts, which would aggregate $21,000,000 and 
bring the National debt to a total of $75,000,000. 
Hamilton's suggestion that the State debts be as- 
sumed caused a vehement outcry. Its opponents 
protested that no fair adjustment could be reached. 
The Assumptionists retorted that this would be 
the only fair settlement, but the Anti-Assumption- 
ists voted them down by a majority of two. In other 
respects, Hamilton's financial measures prospered, 
and before many months he seized the opportunity 
of making a bargain by which the next Congress 
reversed its vote on Assumption. In less than a year 
the members of Congress and many of the public had 
reached the conclusion that New York City was not 
the best place to be the capital of the Nation. The 
men from the South argued that it put the South to 
a disadvantage, as its ease of access to New York, 
New Jersey, and the Eastern States gave that sec- 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 183 

tion of the country a too favorable situation. There 
was a strong party in favor of Philadelphia, but it 
was remembered that in the days of the Confedera- 
tion a gang of turbulent soldiers had dashed down 
from Lancaster and put to flight the Convention sit- 
ting at Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Philadelphia was 
chosen temporarily, the ultimate choice of a situation 
being farther south on the Potomac. 

Jefferson returned from France in the early win- 
ter. The discussion over Assumption was going on 
very virulently. It happened that one day Jefferson 
met Hamilton, and this is his account of what 
followed : 

As I was going to the President's one day, I met him 
[Hamilton] in the sjtreet. He walked me backwards and 
forwards before the President's door for half an hour. 
He painted pathetically the temper into which the leg- 
islature had been wrought; the disgust of those who 
were called the creditor States; the danger of the seces- 
sion of their members, and the separation of the States. 
He observed that the members of the administration 
ought to act in concert; that though this question was 
not of my department, yet a common duty should make 
it a common concern ; that the President was the centre 
on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, 
and that all of us should rally around him and support, 
with joint efforts, measures approved by him; and that 
the question having been lost by a small majority only, 
it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment 
and discretion of some of my friends, might effect a 
change in the vote, and the machine of government, 



u.^ 



i84 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

now suspended, might be again set into motion. I told 
him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject, 
that not having yet informed myself of the system of 
finance adopted, I knew not how far this was a neces- 
sary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its rejection endan- 
gered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, 
I should deem it most unfortunate of all consequences 
to avert which all partial and temporary evils should be 
yielded. I proposed to him, however, to dine with me 
the next day, and I would invite another friend or two, 
bring them into conference together, and I thought it 
impossible that reasonable men, consulting together 
coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, 
to form a compromise which was to save the Union. 
The discussion took place. I could take no part in it 
but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the 
circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally 
agreed, that whatever importance had been attached to 
the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the 
Union and of concord among the States was more impor- 
tant, and that, therefore, it would be better that the 
vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which 
some members should change their votes. But it was 
observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the 
Southern States, and that some concomitant measure 
should be adopted to sweeten It a little to them.\There 
had before been projects to fix the seat of government 
either at Philadelphia or at Georgetown on the Poto- 
mac; and it was thought that, by giving it to Philadel- 
phia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently 
afterwards, this mlgh|j as an anodyne, ^ solve in some 
degree the ferment which might be excited by the other 
measure alone. So two of the Potomac members (White 
and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost 
convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton 
undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 185 

influence he had established over the eastern members, 
with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the 
Middle States, effected his side of the engagement.^ 

As a result of Hamilton's bargain, the bill for 
Assumption was passed, and it was agreed that 
Philadelphia should be the capital for ten years and 
that afterwards a new city should be built on the 
banks of the Potomac and made the capital per- 
manently. 

During the summer of 1789 Washington suffered 
the most serious sickness of his entire life. The cause 
was anthrax in his thigh, and at times it seemed that 
it would prove fatal. For many weeks he was forced 
to lie on one side, with frequent paroxysms of great 
pain. After a month and a half he began to mend, 
but very slowly, so that autumn came before he 
got up and could go about again. His medical ad- 
viser was Dr. Samuel Bard of New York, and Irving 
reports the following characteristic conversation be- 
tween him and his patient: "Do not flatter me with 
vain hopes," said Washington, with placid firmness; 
"I am not afraid to die, and therefore can bear the 
worst." The doctor expressed hope, but owned that 
he had apprehensions. "Whether to-night or twenty 
years hence, makes no difference," observed Wash- 

* Jefferson's Works, ix, 93. 



i86 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ington. "I know that I am in the hands of a good 
Providence." ^ His friends thought that he never 
really recovered his old-time vigor. That autumn, 
as soon as Congress had adjourned, he took a jour- 
ney through New England, going as far as Ports- 
mouth and returning in time for the opening of the 
1^' Second Congress. 

The Government was now settling down into what 
became its normal routine. The Cabinet was com- 
pleted by the appointment of Jefferson as Secre- 
tary of State and Edmund Randolph as Attorney- 
General. Jefferson would have preferred to go back 
to France as American Minister, but in a fulsome 
letter he declared himself willing to accept any 
office which Washington wished him to fill. The 
Supreme Court was organized with John Jay as 
Chief Justice, and five Associate Justices. Washing- 
ton could not fail to be aware that parties^ were be- 
ginning to shape themselves. At first the natural 
divisions consisted of the FcJcialis ts, who believed 
in adopting the Constitution, and those who did not. 
jf As soon as the thirteen States voted to accept the 
Constitution, the Anti-Federalists had no definite 
motive for existing. ^ Their place was taken princi- 
pally by the Republicans over against whom were 
the Democrats. 'A few years later these parties ex- 

* Irving, V, 22. 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 187 

changed names. A fundamental difference in the 
ideas of the Americans sprang from their views in 
regard to National and State rights. Some of them 
regarded the State as the ultimate unitr Others in- 
sisted that the Nation was sovereign. ^These two 
conflicting views run through American history 
down to the Civil War, and even in Washington's 
time they existed in outline. VVashington himself 
was a Federalist, believing that the Federation of 
the former Colonies should be made as compact and 
strongly knit as possible. He had had too much 
evidence during the Revolution of the weakness of 
uncentralized government, and yet his Virginia ori- 
gin and training had planted in him a strong sym- 
pathy for State rights. In Washington's own Cabi- 
net dwelt side by side the leaders of the two parties: 
Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, though 
born in Virginia of high aristocratic stock, was the 
most aggressive and infatuated of Democrats. Alex- 
ander Hamilton, born in the West Indies and owing 
nothing to family connections, was a natural aristo- 
crat. He believed that the educated and compe- 
tent few must inevitably govern the incompetent 
masses. His enemies suspected that he leaned 
strongly towards monarchy and would have been 
glad to see Washington crowned king. 

President Washington, believing in Assumption, 



J 



i88 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

took satisfaction in Hamilton's bargain with Jeffer- 
son which made Assumption possible. ' For the Presi- 
dent saw in the act a power making for union, and 
union was one of the chief objects of his concern. 
The foremost of Hamilton's measures, however, for 
good or for ill, was the protectivej/tariff on foreign 
imports. Experience has shown tliat protection has 
been much more than a financial device. It has been 
deeply and inextricably moral. It has caused many 
American citizens to seek for tariff favors from the 
Government. Compared with later rates, those which 
Hamilton's tariff set were moderate indeed. The 
highest duties it exacted on foreign imports were fif- 
teen per cent, while the average was only eight and a 
half per cent. And yet it had not been long in force 
when the Government was receiving $200,000 a 
month, which enabled it to defray all the necessary 
public charges. Hamilton, in the words of Daniel 
Webster, ' ' smote the rock of National resources and 
copious streams of wealth poured forth. He touched 
the dead corpse (i>f public credit and it stood forth 
erect with life." ^he United States of all modern 
countries have been the best fitted by their natural 
resources to do without artificial stimulation, in 
spite of which fact they still cling, after one hundred 
and thirty-five years, to the easy and plausible 
tariff makeshift. ' Washington himself believed that 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 189 

the tariff should so promote industries as to pro- 
vide for whatever the country needed in time of war. 

Two other financial measures are to be credited to 
Hamilton. The first was the excise, an internal rev- 
enue on distilled spirits. It met with opposition 
from the advocates of State rights, but was passed 
after heated debate. The last was the establish- 
ment of a United States Bank. All of Hamilton's 
measures tended directly to centralization, the ob- 
ject which he and Washington regarded as para- 
mount. ' 

In 1790 Washington made a second trip through 
the Eastern States, taking pains to visit Rhode 
Island, which was the last State to ratify the Con- 
stitution (May 29, 1790). These trips of his, for 
which the hostile might have found parallels in the 
royal progresses of the British sovereigns, really 
served a good purpose; for they enabled the people 
to see and hear their President; which had a good 
effect in a newly established nation. Washington lost 
no opportunity for teaching a moral. Thus, when 
he came to Boston, John Hancock, the Governor of 
Massachusetts, seemed to wish to indicate that the 
Governor was the highest personage in the State 
and not at all subservient even to the President of 
the United States. He wished to arrange it so that 
Washington should call on him first, but this Wash- 



m. 



190 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ington had no idea of doing. Hancock then wrote 
and apologized for not greeting the President owing 
to an unfortunate indisposition. Washington repHed 
regretting the Governor's illness and announcing 
that the schedule on which he was travelling required 
him to quit Boston at a given time. Governor Han- 
cock, whose spectacular signature had given him 
prominence everywhere, finding that he could not 
make the President budge, sent word that he was 
coming to pay his respects. Washington replied that 
he should be much pleased to welcome him, but 
expressed anxiety lest the Governor might increase 
his indisposition by coming out. This little comedy 
had a far-reaching effect. It settled the question as 
to whether the Governor of a State or the President 
of the United States should take precedence. From 
that day to this, no Governor, so far as I am aware, 
has set himself above the President in matters of 
ceremonial. 

One of the earliest difficulties which Washington's 
administration had to overcome was the hostility of 
the Indians. Indian discontent and even lawlessness 
had been going on for years, with only a desultory 
and ineffectual show of vigor on the part of the 
whites. Washington, who detested whatever was 
ineffectual and lacking in purpose, determined to 
beat down the Indians into submission. He sent out a 




THE GOODHUE PORTRAIT " OF WASHINGTON 
1790 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 191 

first army under General St. Clair, but It was taken 
in ambush by the Indians and nearly wiped out — a 
disaster which caused almost a panic throughout 
the Western country. Washington felt the losses 
deeply, but he had no intention of being beaten 
there. He organized a second army, gave it to Gen- 
eral Wayne to command, who finally brought the 
Six Nations to terms. The Indians in the South still 
remained unpacified and lawless. 

Washington made another prolonged trip, this 
time through the Southern States, which greatly 
improved his health and gave an opportunity of 
seeing many of the public men, and enabled the 
population to greet for the first time their President. 
Meanwhile the seeds of partisan feuds grew apace, 
as they could not fail to do where two of the ablest 
politicians ever known in the United States sat in 
the same Cabinet and pursued with unremitting 
energy ideas that were mutually uncompromising. 
Thomas Jefferson, although born of the old aristo- 
cratic stock of Virginia, had early announced him- 
self a Democrat, and had led that faction through- 
out the Revolution. His facile and fiery mind gave 
to the Declaration of Independence an irresistible 
appeal, and it still remains after nearly one hundred 
and fifty years one of the most contagious documents 
ever drawn up. Going to France at the outbreak of 



fL--^' 



192 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

the French Revolution, he found the French nation 
about to put into practice the principles on which he 
had long fed his imagination — principles which he 
accepted without qualification and without scruple. 
Returning to America after the organization of the 
Government, he accepted with evident reluctance 
the position of Secretary of State which Washington 
offered to him. In the Cabinet his chief adversary 
or competitor was Alexander Hamilton, his junior 
by fourteen years, a man equally versatile and 
equally facile — and still more enthralling as an 
orator. Hamilton harbored the anxiety that the 
United States under their new Constitution would 
be too loosely held together. He promoted, therefore, 
every measure that tended to strengthen the Cen- 
tral Government and to save it from dissolution 
either by the collapse of its unifying bonds or by an- 
archy. In the work of the first two years of Wash- 
ington's administration, Hamilton was plainly vic- 
torious. 1 he Tariff Law, the Excise, the National 
Bank, the National Funding Bill, all centraliz- 
ing measures, were his. Washington approved them 
all, and we may believe that he talked them over 
with Hamilton and gave them his approval before 
they came under public discussion. 

Thus, as Hamilton gained, Jefferson plainly lost. 
But Washington did not abandon his sound position 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 193 
asaneutral between the two. %erequested Jefferson 
and Edmund Randolph to draw up objections to 
some of Hamilton's schemes, so that he had in writ- 
ing the arguments of very strong opponents. 

Meanwhile the French Revolution had broken all 
bounds, and Jefferson, as the sponsor of the French 
over here, was kept busy in explaining and defending 
the Gallic horrors. The Americans were in a large 
sense law-abiding, but in another sense they were 
lawless. Nevertheless, they heard with horror of the 
atrocities of the French Revolutionists — of the 
drownings, of the guillotining, of the imprisonment 
and execution of the King and Queen — and they 
had a healthy distrust of the Jacobin Party, which 
boasted that these things were natural accompani- 
ments of Liberty with which they planned to con- 
quer the world. Events in France inevitably drove 
that country into war with England. Washington 
and his chief advisers believed that the United States 
ought to remain neutral as between the two bellig- 
erents. But neutrality was difficult. In spite of their 
horror at the French Revolution, the memory of our 
debt to France during our own Revolution made a 
very strong bond of sympathy, whereas our long rec- 
ord of hostility to England during our Colony days, 
and since the Declaration of Independence, kept 
alive a traditional hatred for Great Britain. While it 



194 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

was easy, therefore, to preach neutrahty, it was very 
difficult to enforce it. An occurrence which could 
not have been foreseen further added to the difficulty 
of neutrality. 

In the spring of 1793 the French Republic ap- 
pointed Edmond Charles Genet, familiarly called 
" Citizen Genet," Minister to the United States. He 
was a young man, not more than thirty, of very quick 
parts, who had been brought up in the Bureau of 
Foreign Affairs, had an exorbitant idea of his own 
importance, and might be described without malice 
as a master of effrontery. The ship which brought 
him to this country was driven by adverse winds to 
Charleston and landed him there on April 8th. He 
lost no time in fitting out a privateer against British 
mercantile vessels. The fact that by so doing he 
broke the American rule of neutrality did not seem 
to trouble him at all ; on the contrary, he acted as if 
he were simply doing what the United States would 
do if they really did what they wished. As soon as 
he had made his arrangements, he proceeded by 
land up the coast to Philadelphia. Jefferson was 
exuberant, and he wrote in exultation to Madison on 
the fifth of May, concluding with the phrase, " I 
wish we may be able to repress the spirit of the 
people within the limits of a fair neutrahty." If 
there be such things as crocodile tears, perhaps there 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 195 

may also be crocodile wishes, of which this would 
seem to be one. A friend of Hamilton's, writing 
about the same time, speaks in different terms, as 
follows: 

He has a good person, a fine rudd}^ complexion, quite 
active, and seems always in a bustle, more like a busy 
man than a man of business, A Frenchman in his man- 
ners, he announces himself in all companies as the Min- 
ister of the Republic, etc., talks freely of his commission, 
and, like most Europeans, seems to have adopted mis- 
taken notions of the penetration and knowledge of the 
people of the United States. His system, I think, is to 
laugh us into war if he can.^ 

Citizen Genet did not allow his progress up the 
coast to be so rapid that he was deprived of any 
ovation. The banquets, luncheons, speech-makings, 
by which he was welcomed ever}''where, had had no 
parallel in the country up to that time. They seemed 
to be too carefully prepared to be unpremeditated, 
and probably many of those who took part in them 
did not understand that they were cheering for a 
cause which they had never espoused. One wonders 
why he was allowed to carry on this personal cam- 
paign and to show rude unconcern for good manners, 
or indeed for any manners except those of a wayward 
and headstrong boy. It might be thought that the 
Secretary of State abetted him and in his infatuation 

* Irving, V, 151. 



196 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

for France did not check him; but, so far as I have 
discovered, no evidence exists that Jefferson was in 
collusion with the truculent and impertinent "Citi- 
zen." No doubt, however, the shrewd American 
politician took satisfaction in observing the extrava- 
gances of his fellow countrymen in paying tribute to 
the representative of France. At Philadelphia, for 
instance, the city which already was beginning to 
have a reputation for spinster propriety which be- 
came its boast in the next century, we hear that 
**. . . before Genet had presented his credentials and 
been acknowledged by the President, he was invited 
to a grand republican dinner, 'at which,' we are told, 
'the company united in singing the Marseillaise 
Hymn. A deputation of French sailors presented 
themselves, and were received by the guests with 
the fraternal embrace.' The table was decorated with 
the 'tree of liberty,' and a red cap, called the cap of 
liberty, was placed on the head of the minister, and 
from his travelled in succession from head to head 
round the table." ^ 

But not all the Americans were delirious enthusi- 
asts. Hamilton kept his head am/d the whirling words 
which, he said, might "do us much harm and could 
do France no good." In a letter, which deserves to 
be quoted in spite of its length, he states very clearly 
* Jay's Life, i, 30. 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 197 

the opinions of one of the sanest of Americans. He 
writes to a friend : 

It cannot be without danger and inconvenience to our 
interests, to impress on the nations of Europe an idea 
that we are actuated by the same spirit which has for 
some time past fatally misguided the measures of those 
who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied a cause 
once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. 
The cause of France is compared with that of America 
during its late revolution. Would to Heaven that the com- 
parison were just! Would to Heaven we could discern, 
in the mirror of French affairs, the same decorum, the 
same gravity, the same order, the same dignity, the 
same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the 
American Revolution! Clouds and darkness would not 
then rest upon the issue as they now do. I own I do not 
like the comparison. When I contemplate the horrid 
and systematic massacres of the 2nd and 3rd of Septem- 
ber, when I observe that a Marat and a Robespierre, 
the notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit tri- 
umphantly in the convention, and take a conspicuous 
part in its measures — that an attempt to bring the 
assassins to justice has been obliged to be abandoned — 
when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was a con- 
tinued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence 
of his heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he 
was the monarch, who, though educated in the lap of 
despotism, had given repeated proofs that he was not 
the enemy of liberty, brought precipitately and igno- 
miniously to the block without any substantial proof of 
guilt, as yet disclosed — without even an authentic ex- 
hibition of motives, in decent regard to the opinions of 
mankind; when I find the doctrine of atheism openly 
advanced in the convention, and heard with loud ap- 
plause ; when I see the sword of fanaticism extended to 



198 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

force a political creed upon citizens who were invited to 
submit to the arms of France as the harbingers of liberty ; 
when I behold the hand of rapacity outstretched to 
prostrate and ravish the monuments of religious wor- 
ship, erected by those citizens and their ancestors; when 
I perceive passion, tumult, and violence usurping those 
seats, where reason and cool deliberation ought to pre- 
side, I acknowledge that I am glad to believe there is no 
real resemblance between what was the cause of America 
and what is the cause of France; that the difference is 
no less great than that between liberty and licentious- 
ness. I regret whatever has a tendency to confound 
them, and I feel anxious, as an American, that the ebul- 
litions of inconsiderate men among us may not tend to 
involve our reputation in the issue. ^ 

Citizen Genet continued his campaign unabashed. 
He attempted to force the United States to give arms 
and munitions to the French. Receiving cool an- 
swers to his demands, he lost patience, and intended 
to appeal to the American People, over the head of 
the Government. He sent his communication for 
the two Houses of Congress, in care of the Secretary 
of State, to be delivered. But Washington, whose 
patience had seemed inexhaustible, believed that 
the time had come to act boldly. By his instruction 
Jefferson returned the communication to Genet 
with a note in which he curtly reminded the obstrep- 
erous Frenchman of a diplomat's proper behavior. 
As the American Government had already requested 

^ Hamilton's Works, 566. 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 199 

the French to recall Genet, his amazing inflation 
collapsed like a pricked bladder. He was too wary, 
however, to return to France which he had served so 
devotedly. He preferred to remain in this country, 
to become an American citizen, and to marry the 
daughter of Governor Clinton of New York. Per- 
haps he had time for leisure, during the anticlimax 
of his career, to recognize that President Washington, 
whom he had looked down upon as a novice in diplo- 
macy, knew how to accomplish his purpose, very 
quietly, but effectually. A century and a quarter 
later, another foreigner, the German Ambassador, 
Count Bernstorff, was allowed by the American 
Government to weave an even more menacing plot, 
but the sound sense of the country awoke in time to 
sweep him and his truculence and his conspiracies 
beyond the Atlantic. 

The intrigues of Genet emphasized the fact that 
a party had arisen and was not afraid to speak openly 
against President Washington. He held in theory a 
position above that of parties, but the theory did not 
go closely with fact, for he made no concealment of his 
fundamental Federalism, and every one saw that, in 
spite of his formal neutrality, in great matters he al- 
most always sided with Hamilton instead of with Jef- 
ferson. When he himself recognized that the rift was 
spreading between his two chief Cabinet officers, he 



200 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

warned them both to avoid exaggerating their differ- 
ences and pursuing any pohcy which must be harm- 
l ful to the country. Patriotism was the chief aim of 
every one, and patriotism meant sinking one's private 
desires in order to achieve Hberty through unity. 
V#^ Washington himself was a man of such strict virtue 
that he could work with men who in many matters 
disagreed with him, and as he left the points of disa- 
greement on one side, he used the more effectively 
points of agreement. I do not think that Jefferson 
could do this, or Hamilton either, and I cannot rid 
myself of the suspicion that Jefferson furnished 
Philip Freneau, who came from New York to Phila- 
delphia to edit the anti-Washington newspaper, with 
much of his inspiration if not actual articles. The ob- 
jective of the "Gazette" was, of course, the destruc- 
tion of Hamilton and his policy of finance. If Ham- 
ilton could be thus destroyed, it would be far easier 
to pull down Washington also. Lest the invectives 
in the "Gazette" should fail to shake Washington in 
his regard for Hamilton, Jefferson indited a serious 
criticism of the Treasury, and he took pains to have 
friends of his leave copies of the indictment so that 
Washington could not fail to see them. The latter, 
however, by a perfectly natural and characteristic 
stroke which Jefferson could not foresee, sent the 
indictment to Hamilton and asked him to explain. 



THE FIRST AMERICAN PRESIDENT 201 

This Hamilton did straightforwardly and point- 
blank — and Jefferson had the mortification of per- 
ceiving that his ruse had failed. Hamilton, under a 
thin disguise, wrote a series of newspaper assaults on 
Jefferson, who could not parry them or answer them. 
He was no match for the most terrible controversial- 
ist in America; but he could wince. And presently 
B. F. Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, 
brought his unusual talents in vituperation, in cal- 
umny, and in nastiness to the "Aurora," a black- 
guard sheet of Philadelphia. Washington doubtless 
thought himself so hardened to abuse by the experi- 
ence he had had of it during the Revolution that 
nothing which Freneau, Bache, and their kind could 
say or do, would affect him. But he was mistaken. 
And one cannot fail to see that they saddened and 
annoyed him. He felt so keenly the evil which must ^X 
come from the deliberate sowing of dissensions. He 
cared little what they might say against himself, 
but he cared immensely for their sin against patri- 
otism. Before his term as President drew to a close, ^-" 
he was already deciding not to be a candidate for a 
second term. He told his intention to a few intimates 
— from them it spread to many others. His best 
friends were amazed. They foresaw great trials for 
the Nation and a possible revolution. Hamilton 
tried to move him by every sort of appeal. Jefferson — 



202 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

also was almost boisterous in denouncing the very 
idea. He impressed upon him the importance of his 
continuing at that crisis. He had not been President 
long enough to establish precedents for the new 
Nation. There were man}^ volatile incidents which, 
if treated with less judgment than his, might do 
grievous harm. One wonders how sincere all the en- 
treaties to Washington were, but one cannot doubt 
that the great majority of the country was perfectly 
sincere in wishing to have him continue; for it had 
^ sunk deep into the hearts of Americans that Wash- 
ington was himself a party, a policy, an ideal above 
all the rest. And when the election was held in the 
autumn of 1792, he was reelected by the equivalent 
of a unanimous vote. 



CHAPTER X 
THE JAY TREATY 

THERE is no doubt that Washington in his 
Olympian quiet took a real satisfaction in his 
election. On January 20, 1793, he wrote to Governor 
Henry Lee of Virginia: 

A mind must be insensible indeed not to be gratefully 
impressed by so distinguished and honorable a testi- 
mony of public approbation and confidence; and as I 
suffered my name to be contemplated on this occasion, 
it is more than probable that I should, for a moment, 
have experienced chagrin, if my reelection had not been 
by a pretty respectable vote. But to say I feel pleasure 
from the prospect of commencing another term of duty 
would be a departure from the truth, — for, however it 
might savor of affectation in the opinion of the world 
(who, by the by, can only guess at my sentiments, as it 
never has been troubled with them), my particular and 
confidential friends well know, that it was after a long 
and painful conflict in my own breast, that I was with- 
held, (by considerations which are not necessary to be 
mentioned), from requesting in time, that no vote 
might be thrown away upon me, it being my fixed deter- 
mination to return to the walks of private life at the end 
of my term.^ 

Washington felt at his reelection not merely ego- 
tistic pleasure for a personal success, but the assur- 

^ Ford, XII, 256. 



204 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ance that it involved a triumph of measures which 
he held to be of far more importance than any success 
of his own. The American Nation's new organism 
which he had set in motion could now continue with 
the uniformity of its policy undisturbed by dislocat- 
ing checks and interruptions. Much, very much 
depended upon the persons appointed to direct its 
progress, and they depended upon the President who 
appointed them. In matters of controversy or dis- 
pute, Washington upheld a perfectly impartial at- 
titude. But he did not believe that this should 
shackle his freedom in appointing. According to him 
a man must profess right views in order to be con- 
sidered worthy of appointment. The result of this 
was that Washington's appointees must be orthodox 
in his definition of orthodoxy. 

His first important act in his new administration 
^ was to issue a Proclamation of Neutrality on April 
22d. Although this document was clear in intent and 
in purpose, and was evidently framed to keep the 
United States from being involved in the war be- 
tween France and England, it gave ofTence to par- 
tisans of either country. They used it as a weapon 
for attacking the Government, so that Washington 
found to his sorrow that the partisan spites, which 
he had hoped would vanish almost of their own ac- 
cord, were become, on the contrary, even more for- 



THE JAY TREATY 205 

midable and irritating. At this juncture the coming 
of Genet and his machinations added greatly to 
the embarrassment, and, having no sense of decency, 
Genet insinuated that the President had usurped 
the powers of Congress and that he himself would 
seek redress by appealing to the people over the 
President. I have already stated that, having toler- 
ated Genet's insults and menaces as far as he deemed 
necessary, Washington put forth his hand and 
crushed the spluttering Frenchman like a bubble. 

Persons who like to trace the sardonic element in 
history — the element which seems to laugh deri- 
sively at the ineffectual efforts of us poor mortals to 
establish ourselves and lead rational lives in the world 
as it is — can find few better examples of it than these 
early years of the American Republic. In the war 
which brought about the independence of the Amer- 
ican Colonies, England had been their enemy and 
France their friend. Now their instinctive gratitude 
to France induced many, perhaps a majority of them, 
to look with effusive favor on France, although her 
character and purpose had quite changed and it was 
very evident that for the Americans to side with 
France would be against sound policy and common 
sense. Neutrality, the strictest neutrality, between 
England and France was therefore the only rational 
course; but the American partisans of these rivals 



/ 



J 



206 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

did their utmost to render this unachievable. Much 
of Washington's second term see-sawed between one 
horn and the other of this dilemma. The sardonic 
aspect becomes more glaring if we remember that the 
United States were a new-born nation which ought 
to have been devoting itself to establishing viable 
relations among its own population and not to have 
been dissipating its strength taking sides with neigh- 
bors who lived four thousand miles away. 

In the autumn of 1793 Jefferson insisted upon 
resigning as Secretary of State. Washington used 
all his persuasiveness to dissuade him, but in vain. 
Jefferson saw the matter in its true light, and in- 
sisted. Perhaps it at last occurred to him, as it must 
occur to every dispassionate critic, that he could not 
go on forever acting as an important member of an 
administration which pursued a policy diametrically 
opposed to his own. After all, even the most adroit 
politicians must sometimes sacrifice an offering to 
candor, not to say honesty. At the end of the year 
he retired to the privacy of his home at Monticello, 
where he remained in seclusion, not wholly innocu- 
ous, until the end of 1796. Edmund Randolph suc- 
ceeded him as Secretary of State. 

Whether it was owing to the departure of Jeffer- 
son from the Cabinet or not, the fact remains that 
Washington concluded shortly thereafter the most 



THE JAY TREATY 207 

difficult diplomatic negotiation of his career. This 
was the treaty with England, commonly called Jay's 
Treaty. The President wished at first to appoint 
Hamilton, the ablest member of the Cabinet, but, 
realizing that it would be unwise to deprive himself 
and his administration of so necessary a supporter, 
he offered the post to John Jay, the Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court. The quality, deemed most 
desirable, which it was feared Jay might lack, was 
audacity. But he had discretion, tact, and urbanity 
in full share, besides that indefinable something 
which went with his being a great gentleman. 

The President, writing to Gouverneur Morris, who 
had recently been recalled as Minister to France, 
said : 

My primary objects, to which I have steadily ad- 
hered, have been to preserve the country in peace, if I 
can, and to be prepared for war if I cannot, to effect the 
first, upon terms consistent with the respect which is 
due to ourselves, and with honor, justice and good faith 
to all the world. 

Mr. Jay (and not Mr. Jefferson) as has been suggested 
to you, embarked as envoy extraordinary for England 
about the middle of May. If he succeed, well ; if he does 
not, why, knowing the worst, we must take measures 
accordingly.^ 

Jay reached London early in June, 1794, and 
labored over the treaty with the British negotiators 
^ Ford, XII, 436. Mount Vernon, June 25, 1794. 



/ 



2o8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

during the summer and autumn, started for home 
before Christmas, and put the finished document in 
Washington's hands in March. From the moment 
of his going enemies of all kinds talked bitterly 
against him. The result must be a foregone conclu- 
sion, since John Jay was regarded as the chief Anglo- 
maniac in America after Hamilton. They therefore 
condemned in advance any treaty he might agree 
to. But their criticism went deeper than mere ha- 
tred of him: it sprang from an inveterate hatred of 
England, which dated from before the Revolution. 
Since the Treaty of 1783 the English seemed to act 
deliberately with studied truculence, as if the Amer- 
icans would not and could not retaliate. They were 
believed to be instigating the Indians to continuous 
underhand war. They had reached that dangerous 
stage of truculence, when they did not think it mat- 
tered whether they spoke with common diplomatic 
reticence. Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General 
of Canada, and to-day better known as Sir Guy Carl$- 
ton, his name before they made him a peer, ad- 
dressed a gathering of Indian chiefs at Quebec on 
the assumption that war would come in a few weeks. 
President Washington kept steady watch of every 
symptom, and he knew that it would not require a 
large spark to kindle a conflagration. "My objects 
are, to prevent a war," he wrote to Edmund Randolph, 



THE JAY TREATY 209 

on April 15, 1794, "if justice can be obtained by fair 
and strong representations (to be made by a special 
envoy) of the injuries which this country has sus- 
tained from Great Britain in various ways, to put it 
into a complete state of military defence, and to pro- 
vide eventually for such measures as seem to be now 
pending in Congress for execution, if negotiations in 
a reasonable time proves unsuccessful." ^ 

The year 1 794 marked the sleepless anxiety of the 
Silent President. Day and night his thoughts were 
in London, with Jay. He said little; he had few let- 
ters from Jay — it then required from eight to ten 
weeks for the mail clippers to make a voyage across 
the Atlantic. Opposition to the general idea of such 
a treaty as the mass of Republicans and Anti-Fed- 
eralists supposed Washington hoped to secure, grew 
week by week. The Silent Man heard the cavil and 
said nothing. 

At last early in 1795 Jay returned. His Treaty 
caused an uproar. The hottest of his enemies found 
an easy explanation on the ground that he was a 
traitor. Stanch Federalists suffered all varieties of 
mortification. Washington himself entered into no 
discussion, but he ruminated over those which came 
to him. I am not sure that he invented the phrase 
"Either the Treaty, or war," which summed up the 
^ Ford, xui, 4-9. 



210 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

alternatives which confronted Jay; but he used it 
with convincing emphasis. When it came before the 
Senate, both sides had gathered every available 
supporter, and the vote showed only a majority of 
one in its favor. Still, it passed. But that did not 
satisfy its pertinacious enemies. Neither were they 
restrained by the President's proclamation. The 
Constitution assigned the duty of negotiating and 
ratifying treaties to the President and Senate; but 
to the perfervid Anti-Britishers the Constitution 
was no more than an old cobweb to be brushed away 
at pleasure. The Jay Treaty could not be put into 
effect without money for expenses; all bills involving 
money must pass the House of Representatives; 
therefore, the House would actually control the oper- 
ation of the Treaty. 

The House at this time was Republican by a marked 
majority. In March, 1796, the President laid the 
matter before the House. In a twinkling the flood- 
gates of speechifying burst open ; the debates touched 
every aspect of the question. James Madison, the 
wise supporter of Washington and Hamilton in 
earlier days and the fellow worker on "The Federal- 
ist," led the Democrats in their furious attacks. 
He was ably seconded by Albert Gallatin, the high- 
minded young Swiss doctrinaire from Geneva, a 
terrible man, in whose head principles became two- 



THE JAY TREATY 211 

edged weapons with Calvinlstic precision and mer- 
cilessness. The Democrats requested the President 
to let them see the correspondence in reference to the 
Treaty during its preparation. This he wisely de- 
clined to do. The Constitution did not recognize 
their right to make the demand, and he foresaw that, 
if granted by him then, it might be used as a harm- 
ful precedent. 

For many weeks the controversy waxed hot in the 
House. Scores of speakers hammered at every argu- 
ment, yet only one speech eclipsed all the rest, and 
remains now, after one hundred and thirty years, a 
paragon. There are historians who assert that this 
was the greatest speech delivered in Congress before 
Daniel Webster spoke there — an implication which 
might lead irreverent critics to whisper that too much 
reading may have dulled their discrimination. But 
fortunately not only the text of the speech remains; 
we have also ample evidence of the effect it produced 
on its hearers. Fisher Ames, a Representative from 
Massa':husetts, uttered it. He was a young lawyer, 
feeble in health, but burning, after the manner of 
some consumptives, with intellectual and moral fire 
which strangely belied his slender thread of physical 
life. Ames pictured the horrors which would ensue if 
the Treaty were rejected. Quite naturally he assumed 
the part of a man on the verge of the grave, which 



i 



212 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

increased the impressiveness of his words. He spoke 
for three hours. The members of the House listened 
with feverish attention; the crowds in the balconies 
could not smother their emotion. One witness re- 
ports that Vice-President John Adams sat in the 
gallery, the tears running down his cheeks, and that 
he said to the friend beside him, "My God, how 
great he is!" 

When Ames began, no doubt the Anti-British 
groups which swelled the audience turned towards 
him an unsympathetic if not a scornful attention — 
they had already taken a poll of their members, from 
which it appeared that they could count on a ma- 
jority of six to defeat the Treaty. As he proceeded, 
however, and they observed how deeply he was 
moving the audience, they may have had to keep up 
their courage by reflecting that speeches in Congress 
rarely change votes. They are intended to be read 
by the public outside, which is not under the spell of 
the orator or the crowd. But when Fisher Ames, 
after what must have seemed to them a whirlwind 
speech, closed with these solemn, restrained words, 
they must have doubted whether their victory was 
won: 

Even the minutes I have spent in expostulating, have 
their value [he said] because they protract the crisis and 
the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape 



THE JAY TREATY 213 

it. Yet I have, perhaps, as Httle personal interest in the 
event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member, 
who will not think his chance to be a witness of the con- 
sequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote 
should pass to reject — even I, slender and almost 
broken as my hold on life is, may outlive the govern- 
ment and Constitution of my country.^ 

The next day when the vote was taken it appeared 
that the Republicans, instead of winning by a ma- 
jority of six, had lost by three. 

The person who really triumphed was George 
Washington, although Fisher Ames, who won the 
immediate victory, deserved undying laurel. The 
Treaty had all the objections that its critics brought 
against it then, but it had one sterling virtue which 
outweighed them all. It not only made peace be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain the nor- 
mal condition, but it removed the likelihood that 
the wrangling over petty matters might lead to war. 
For many years Washington had a fixed idea that if 
the new country could live for twenty years without 
a conflict with its chief neighbors, its future would 
be safe; for he felt that at the end of that time it 
would have grown so strong by the natural increase 
in population and by the strength that comes from 
developing its resources, that it need not fear the at- 
tack of any people in the world. The Jay Treaty 

1 Elson, 359. 



\ 



214 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

helped towards this end; it prevented war for sixteen 
years only; but even that delay was of great service 
to the Americans and made them more ready to face 
it than they would have been in 1795. 



CHAPTER XI 
WASHINGTON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 

THE Treaty with England had scarely been put 
in operation before the Treaty with France, of 
which Washington also felt the importance, came to 
the front. Monroe was not an aggressive agent. Per- 
haps very few civilized Americans could have filled 
that position to the satisfaction of his American 
countrymen. They wished the French to acknowl- 
edge and explain various acts which they qualified 
as outrages, whereas the French regarded as glories 
what they called grievances. The men of the Direc- 
tory which now ruled France did not profess the 
atrocious methods of the Terrorists, but they could 
not afford in treating with a foreigner to disavow 
the Terrorists. In the summer of '96, Washington, 
being dissatisfied with Monroe's results, recalled 
him, and sent in his place Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney, to whom President Adams afterwards 
added John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, forming a 
Commission of three. Some of the President's critics 
have regarded his treatment of Monroe as unfair, 
and they imply that it was inspired by partisanship. 
He had always been an undisguised Federalist, 



2i6 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

whereas Monroe, during the past year or more, had 
followed Jefferson and become an unswerving Demo- 
crat. The publication here of a copy of Monroe's 
letter to the French Committee of Public Safety 
caused a sensation ; for he had asserted that he was 
not instructed to ask for the repeal of the French 
decrees by which the spoliation of American com- 
merce had been practised, and he added that if the 
decrees benefited France, the United States would 
submit not only with patience but with pleasure. 
What wonder that Washington, in reading this letter 
and taking in the full enormity of Monroe's words, 
should have allowed himself the exclamation, "Ex- 
traordinary!" What wonder that in due course of 
time he recalled Monroe from Paris and replaced him 
with a man whom he could trust! 
ly The settlement of affairs with France did not 
come until after Washington ceased to be President. 
I will, therefore, say no more about it, except to refer 
to tlie outrageous conduct of the French, who hurried 
two of the Commissioners out of France, and, ap- 
parently at the instigation of Talleyrand, declared 
that they must pay a great deal of money before 
they made any arrangement, to which Charles Pinck- 
ney made the famous rejoinder, "Millions for de- 
fence, but not one cent for tribute." The negotia- 
tions became so stormy that war seemed imminent. 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 217 

Congress authorized President Adams to enlist ten 
thousand men to be put into the field in case of need, 
and he wrote to Washington: "We must have your 
name, if you will in any case permit us to use it. 
There will be more efficacy in it than in many an 
army." McHenry, the Secretary of War, wrote: 
"You see how the storm thickens, and that our 
vessel will soon require its ancient pilot. Will you — 
may we flatter ourselves, that in a crisis so awful and 
important, you will accept the command of all our 
armies? I hope you will, because you alone can 
unite all hearts and all hands, if it is possible that 
they can be united." ^ 

To President Adams Washington replied on July 4, 
1799: "As my whole life has been dedicated to my 
country in one shape or another, for the poor remains 
of it, it is not an object to contend for ease and quiet, 
when all that is valuable is at stake, further than to 
be satisfied that the sacrifice I should make of these, 
is acceptable and desired by my country." * 

Congress voted to restore for Washington the 
rank of Commander-in-Chief, and he agreed with 
the Secretary of War that the three Major-Generals 
should be Alexander Hamilton, Inspector-General; 
Charles C. Pinckney, who was still in Europe; and 
Henry Knox. But a change came over the passions 
* Irving, V, 290. * Ibid., 291. 



y 



2i8 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

of France; Napoleon Bonaparte, the new despot who 
had taken control of that hysterical republic for 
himself, was now aspiring to something higher and 
larger than the humiliation of the United States and 
his menace in that direction ceased. 

We need to note two or three events before Wash- 
ington's term ended because they were thoroughly 
characteristic. First of these was the Whiskey In- 
surrection in western Pennsylvania. The inhabitants 
first grew surly, then broke out in iRsurrection on 
account of the Excise Law. They found it cheaper 
to convert their corn and grain into whiskey, which 
could be more easily transported, but the Government 
insisted that the Excise Law, being a law, should be 
obeyed. The malcontents held a great mass meeting 
on Braddock's Field, denounced the law and declared 
that they would not obey it. W^ashington issued a 
proclamation calling upon the people to resume their 
peaceable life. He called also on the Governors of 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia 
for troops, which they furnished. His right-hand 
lieutenant was Alexander Hamilton, who felt quite 
as keenly as he did himself the importance of putting 
down such an insurrection. Washington knew^ that 
if any body of the people were allowed unpunished 
to rise and disobey any law which pinched or irri- 
tated them, all law and order would very soon go by 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 219 

the board. His action was one of the great examples \ 
in government which he set the people of the United \ 
States. He showed that we must never parley or 
haggle with sedition, treason, or lawlessness, but \ 
must strike a blow that cannot be parried, and at \ 
once. The Whiskey Insurrectionists may have im- 
agined that they were too remote to be reached in 
their western wilderness, but he taught them a most 
salutary lesson that, as they were in the Union, the 
power of the Union could and would reach them. 

One of the matters which Washington could not 
have foreseen was the outrageous abuse of the press, 
which surpassed in virulence and indecency any- 
thing hitherto known in the United States. At first 
the journalistic thugs took care not to vilify Wash- 
ington personally, but, as they became more out- 
rageous, they spared neither him nor his family. 
Freneau, Bache, and Giles were among the most 
malignant of these infamous men; and most suspi- 
cious is it that two of them at least were proteges of 
Thomas Jefferson. Once, when the attack was par- 
ticularly atrocious, and the average citizen might 
well be excused if he believed that Jefferson wrote 
it, Jefferson, unmindful of the full bearing of the 
French proverb, Qui s' excuse s' accuse, wrote to Wash- 
ington exculpating himself and protesting that he 
was not the author of that particular attack, and 



220 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

added that he had never written any article of that 
kind for the press. Many years later the editor of 
that newspaper, one of the most shameless of the 
malignants, calmly reported in a batch of reminis- 
cences that Jefferson did contribute many of the 
most flagrant articles. Senator Lodge, in comment- 
ing on this affair, caustically remarks: "Strict ve- 
racity was not the strongest characteristic of either 
Freneau or Jefferson, and it is really of but little 
consequence whether Freneau was lying in his old 
age or in the prime of life." ^ 

An unbiassed searcher after truth to-day will find 
that the circumstantial evidence runs very strongly 
against Jefferson. He brought Freneau over from 
New York to Philadelphia, he knew the sort of work 
that Freneau would and could do, he gave him an 
office in the State Department, he probably dis- 
cussed the topics which the "National Gazette" was 
to take up, and he probably read the proof of the 
articles which that paper was to publish. In his 
animosities the cloak of charity neither became him 
nor fitted him. 

Several years later, when Bache's paper, the " Au- 
rora," printed some material which Washington's 
enemies hoped would damage him, Jefferson again 
took alarm and wrote to Washington to free himself 

^ Lodge, II, 223. 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 221 

from blame. To him, the magnanimous President 
rephed in part: 

If I had entertained any suspicions before, that the 
queries, which have been pubhshed in Bache's paper, 
proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of 
the contrary would have removed them; but the truth 
is, I harbored none. I am at no loss to conjecture from 
what source they flowed, through what channel they 
were conveyed, and for what purpose they and similar 
publications appear. They were known to be in the 
hands of Mr. Parker in the early part of the last session 
of Congress. They were shown about by Mr. Giles 
during the session, and they made their public exhibi- 
tion about the close of it. 

Perceiving and probably hearing, that no abuse in 
the gazettes would induce me to take notice of anony- 
mous publications against me, those, who were disposed 
to do me such friendly offices, have embraced without 
restraint every opportunity to weaken the confidence 
of the people; and, by having the whole game in their 
hands, they have scrupled not to publish things that 
do not, as well as those which do exist, and to mutilate 
the latter, so as to make them subserve the purposes 
which they have in view.^ 

Washington's opinion of the scurrilous crusade 

against him, he expressed in the following letter to 

Henry Lee: 

But in what will this abuse terminate? For the result, 
as it respects myself, I care not; for I have a consolation 
within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and 
that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives 
have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevo- 

^ Ford, xni, 229. 



222 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

lence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never 
can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, 
whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed. 
The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are 
outrages in that style in proportion as their pieces are 
treated with contempt and are passed by in silence by 
those at whom they are aimed. The tendency of them, 
however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men of cool 
and dispassionate minds, and, in my opinion, ought to 
alarm them, because it is difficult to prescribe bounds 
to the effect.^ 

By his refusal to take notice of these indecencies, 
Washington set a high example. In other countries, 
in France and England, for example, the victims of 
such abuse resorted to duels with their abusers: a 
very foolish and inadequate practice, since it hap- 
pened as often as not that the aggrieved person was 

^^ killed. In taking no notice of the calumnies, there- 
fore, Washington prevented the President of the 
United States from being drawn into an unseemly 
duel. We cannot fail to recognize also that Wash- 
ington was very sensitive to the maintenance of 
^ freedom of speech. He seems to have acted on the 
belief that it was better that occasionally license 
should degenerate into abuse than that liberty 

i/ should be suppressed. He was the President of the 
first government in the world which did not control 
the utterances of its people. Perhaps he may have 

* Lodge, II, 236. 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 223 

supposed that their patriotism would restrain them 
from excesses, and there can be no doubt that the 
insane gibes of the Freneaus and the Baches gave 
him much pain because they proved that those 
scorpions were not up to the level which the new 
Nation offered them. 

As the time for the conclusion of Washington's 
second term drew near, he left no doubt as to his 
intentions. Though some of his best friends urged 
him to stand for reelection, he firmly declined. He 
felt that he had done enough for his country in 
sacrificing the last eight years to it. He had seen it i^' 
through its formative period, and had, he thought, 
steered it into clear, quiet water, so that there was 
no threatening danger to demand his continuance at 
the helm. Many persons thought that he was more 
than glad to be relieved of the increasing abuse of 
the scurrilous editors. No doubt he was, but we can 
hardly agree that merely for the sake of that relief 
he would abandon his Presidential post. But does it 
not seem more likely that his unwillingness to con- 
vert the Presidency into a life office, and so to give 
the critics of the American experiment a valid 
cause for opposition, led him to establish the prece- 
dent that two terms were enough? More than once 
in the century and a quarter since he retired in 1797, 
over-ambitious Presidents have schemed to win a 



224 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

third election and flattering sycophants have en- 
couraged them to beHeve that they could attain it. 
But before they came to the test Washington's 
example — "no more than two" — has blocked 
their advance. In this respect also we must admit 
that he looked far into the future and saw what 
would be best for posterity. The second term as it 
has proved is bad enough, diverting a President 
during his first term to devote much of his energy 
and attention to setting traps to secure the second. It 
might be better to have only one term to last six 
years, instead of four, which would enable a Presi- 
dent to give all his time to the duties of his office, 
instead of giving a large part of it to the chase after 
a reelection. 

As soon as Washington determined irrevocably to 
retire, he began thinking of the "Farewell Address" 
which he desired to deliver to his countrymen as the 
best legacy he could bequeath. Several years before 
he had talked it over with Madison, with whom he 
was then on very friendly terms, and Madison had 
drafted a good deal of it. Now he turned to Hamil- 
ton, giving him the topics as far as they had been 
outlined, and bidding him to rewrite it if he thought 
it desirable. In September, 1796, Washington read 
the "Address" before the assembled Congress. 

The "Farewell Address" belongs among the few 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 225 

supreme utterances on human government. Its au- 
thor seems to be completely detached from all per- 
sonal or local interests. He tries to see the thing as it 
is, and as it is likely to he in its American environ- 
ment. His advice applies directly to the American 
people, and only in so far as what he says has in a 
large sense human pertinence do we find in it more 
than a local application. 

** Be united " is the summary and inspiration of the 
entire "Address." "Be united and be American"; 
as an individual each person must feel himself most 
strongly an American. He urges against the poison- 
ous effects of parties. He warns against the evils 
that may arise when parties choose different foreign 
nations for their favorites. 

The great rule of conduct for us [he says] in regard to 
foreign Nations is, in extending our commercial rela- 
tions, to have with them as little Political connection as 
possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, 
let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us 
stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us 
have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must 
be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of 
which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, 
therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves 
by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her poli- 
tics, ... or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and en- 
ables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one 



/ 



226 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

People, under an efficient government, the period is not 
far off, when we may defy material injury from external 
annoyance ; when we may take such an attitude as will 
cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon 
to be scrupulously respected. When belligerent nations, 
under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, 
will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when 
we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by 
justice shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? 
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, 
by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Eu- 
rope, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of Eu- 
ropean ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice? 

Compared with Machiavelli's "Prince," which 
must come to the mind of every one who reads the 
"Farewell Address," one sees at once that the 
"Prince" is more limber, it may be more spontane- 
ous, but the great difference between the two is in 
their fundamental conception. The "Address" is 
frankly a preachment and much of its impressive- 
ness comes from that fact. The "Prince," on the 
other hand, has little concern with the moral aspect 
of politics discussed and makes no pretence of con- 
demning immoral practices or making itself a cham- 
pion of virtue. In other words, Washington ad- 
dresses an audience which had passed through the 
Puritan Revolution, while Machiavelli spoke to men 
who were familiar with the ideals and crimes of the 
Italian Renaissance. 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 227 

Washington spread his gospel so clearly that all 
persons were sure to learn and inwardly digest it, 
and many of them assented to it in their minds, 
although they did not follow it in their conduct. 
His paramount exhortations — "Be united " — "Be 
Americans"; "do not be drawn into complications 
with foreign powers" — at times had a very real 
living pertinence. The only doctrine which still 
causes controversy is that which touches our atti- 
tude towards foreign countries. During the late 
World War we heard it revived, and a great many 
persons who had never read the "Farewell Address" 
gravely reminded us of Washington's warning against 
"entangling alliances." As a matter of fact, that 
phrase does not appear in the "Farewell Address" 
at all. It was first used by Thomas Jefferson in his 
first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, sixteen 
months after Washington was dead and buried. No 
doubt the meaning could be deduced from what 
Washington said in more than one passage of his 
"Farewell." But to understand in 1914 what he 
said or implied in 1796, we must be historical. In 
1796 the country was torn by conflicting parties for 
and against strong friendship, if not an actual alli- 
ance, between the United States on one side and 
Great Britain or France on the other. Any for- 
eign alliance that could be made in 1914, how- 



228 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ever, could not have been, for the same reason, with 
either Great Britain or France. The aim proposed 
by its advocates was to curb and destroy the Ger- 
man domination of the world. Now Washington was 
almost if not quite the most actual of modern states- 
men. All his arrangements at a given moment were 
directed at the needs and likelihood of the moment, 
and in 1914 he would have planned as 1914 de- 
manded. He would have steered his ship by the wind 
that blew then and not by the wind that had blown 
and vanished one hundred and twenty years before. 
Some one has remarked that, while Washington 
achieved a great victory in the ratification of the Jay 
Treaty, that event broke up the Federalist Party. 
That is probably inexact, but the break-up of the 
Federalist Party was taking place during the last 
years of Washington's second administration. The 
changes in Washington's Cabinet were most signif- 
icant, especially as they nearly all meant the change 
from a more important to a less important Secre- 
tary. Thus John Jay, the first Secretary of State, 
really only an incumbent ad interim, gave way to 
Thomas Jefferson, who was replaced by Edmund 
Randolph in 1794, and who in turn was succeeded by 
Timothy Pickering in 1795. Alexander Hamilton was 
Secretary of the Treasury from the beginning in 1789 
to 1795, when he made way for Ohver Wolcott, Jr. 



RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE 229 

Henry Knox, the original Secretary of War, was suc- 
ceeded by Timothy Pickering in 1795, who, after less 
than a year, was followed by James McHenry. Ed- 
mund Randolph served as Attorney-General in 1789 
to 1794, then retiring for William Bradford who, after 
a brief year, was replaced by Charles Lee. The Post- 
master-Generalship was filled from 1789 to 1791 by 
Samuel Osgood, and then by Timothy Pickering. 
Thus at the end of Washington's eight years we find 
that in the place of two really eminent men, like 
Jefferson and Hamilton, he was served by Edmund 
Randolph and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and James Mc- 
Henry, good routine men at the best, mediocrities if 
judged by comparison with their predecessors. More- 
over, the reputation for discretion of some of them, 
suffered. Thus Randolph had not long been Secre- 
tary of State when Joseph Fauchet, the French Min- 
ister, produced some papers which could be con- 
strued as implying that Randolph had accepted 
money. Randolph was known to be impecunious, 
but his personal honor had never been suspected. 
Washington with characteristic candor sent Ran- 
dolph the batch of incriminating letters. Randolph 
protested that he "forgave" the President and tried 
to exculpate himself in the newspapers. Even that 
process of deflation did not suffice and he had re- 
course to a "Vindication," which was read by few 



230 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

and popularly believed to vindicate nobody. Wash- 
ington is believed to have held Randolph as guilt- 
less, but as weak and as indiscreet. He pitied the 
ignominy, for Randolph had been in a way Washing- 
ton's proteg6, whose career had much interested him 
and whose downfall for such a cause was doubly 
poignant. 



w 



CHAPTER XII 

CONCLUSION 

ASHINGTON'S term as President ended at 
noon on March 4, 1797. He was present at 
the inauguration of President John Adams which im- 
mediately followed. On the 3d, besides attending to 
the final necessary routine, he wrote several letters 
of farewell to his immediate friends, including Henry 
Knox, Jonathan Trumbull, Timothy Pickering, and 
James McHenry. To all he expressed his grief at 
personal parting, but also immense relief and happi- 
ness in concluding his public career. He said, for 
instance, in his letter to Trumbull: 

Although I shall resign the chair of government with- 
out a single regret, or any desire to intermeddle in 
politics again, yet there are many of my compatriots, 
among whom be assured I place you, from whom I shall 
part sorrowing; because, unless I meet with them at 
Mount Vernon, it is not likely that I shall ever see them 
more, as I do not expect that I shall ever be twenty miles 
from it, after I am tranquilly settled there. To tell you 
how glad I should be to see you at that place is unneces- 
sary. To this I will add that it would not only give me 
pleasure, but pleasure also to Mrs. Washington, and 
others of the family with whom you are acquainted, 
and who all unite. In every good wish for you and yours.* 

1 Ford, xiii, 377. 



232 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

In a few days he returned to Mount Vernon and 
there indulged himself in a leisurely survey of the 
plantation. He rode from one farm to another and 
reacquainted himself with the localities where the 
various crops were either already springing or would 
soon be. Indoors there was an immense volume of 
correspondence to be attended to with the aid of 
Tobias Lear, the faithful secretary who had lived 
with the President during the New York and Phila- 
delphia periods. When the letters were sorted, many 
answers had to be written, some of which Washing- 
ton dictated and others he wrote with his own hand. 
He admits to Secretary McHenry that, when he 
goes to his writing table to acknowledge the letters 
he has received, when the lights are brought, he feels 
tired and disinclined to do this work, conceiving that 
the next night will do as well. "The next night 
comes," he adds, "and with it the same causes for 
postponement, and so on." He has not had time to 
look into a book. He is dazed by the incessant num- 
ber of new faces which appear at Mount Vernon. 
They come, he says, out of "respect" for him, but 
their real reason is curiosity. He practises Virginian 
hospitality very lavishly, but he cannot endure the 
late hours. So he invites his nephew, Lawrence 
Lewis, to spend as much time as he can at Mount 
Vernon while he himself and Mrs. Washington go to 



CONCLUSION 233 

bed early, "soon after candle light." Lewis accepted 
the invitation all the more willingly because he found 
at the mansion Nelly Custis, a pretty and sprightly 
young lady with whom he promptly fell in love and 
married later. Nelly and her brother George had 
been adopted by Washington and brought up in the 
family. She was his particular pet. Like other ma- 
ture men he found the boys of the younger genera- 
tion somewhat embarrassing. I suppose they felt, as 
well they might, a great and awful gulf yawning be- 
tween them. "I can govern men," he would say, 
"but I cannot govern boys." ^ With Nelly Custis, 
however, he found it easy to be chums. No one can 
forget the mock-serious letter in which he wrote to 
her in regard to becoming engaged and gave her ad- 
vice about falling in love. The letter is unexpected 
and yet it bears every mark of sincerity and reveals 
a genuine vein in his nature. We must always think 
of Nelly as one of the refreshments of his older life 
and as one of its great delights. He considered him- 
self an old man now. His hair no longer needed 
powder; years and cares had made it white. He 
spoke of himself without affectation as a very old 
man, and apparently he often thought, as he was 
engaged in some work, "this is the last time I shall 
do this." He seems to have taken it for granted that 

^ Irving, V, 277. 



234 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

he was not to live long; but this neither slackened 
his industry nor made him gloomy. And he had in 
truth spent a life of almost unremitting laborious- 
ness. Those early years as surveyor and Indian 
fighter and pathfinder were years of great hardships. 
The eight years of the Revolution were a continu- 
ous physical strain, an unending responsibility, and 
sometimes a bodily deprivation. And finally his last 
service as President had brought him disgusts, pin- 
pricks which probably wore more on his spirits than 
did the direct blows of his opponents. Very likely he 
felt old in his heart of hearts, much older than his 
superb physical form betokened. We cannot but 
rejoice that Nelly Custis flashed some of the joyful- 
ness and divine insouciance of youth into the tired 
heart of the tired great man. 

Perhaps the best offhand description of Washing- 
ton in these later days is that given by an English 
actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near 
Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man 
and a woman was upset. Bernard dismounted to 
give help, and presently another rider came up and 
joined in the work. "He was a tall, erect, well-made 
man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared 
to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting 
from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was 
a blue coat buttoned to the chin, and buckskin 




CQ 



CONCLUSION 235 

breeches." ^ They righted the chaise, harnessed the 
horse, and revived the young woman who, true to 
her time and place, had fainted. Then she and her 
companion drove off towards Alexandria. Washing- 
ton invited Bernard to come home with him and rest 
during the heat of the day. The actor consented. 
From what the actor subsequently wrote about that 
chance meeting I take the following paragraphs, 
some of which strike to the quick: 

In conversation his face had not much variety of ex- 
pression. A look of thoughtfulness was given by the 
compression of the mouth and the indentations of the 
brow (suggesting an habitual conflict with, and mastery 
over, passion), which did not seem so much to disdain a 
sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of denot- 
ing them. Nor had his voice, so far as I could discover 
in our quiet talk, much change or richness of intonation, 
but he always spoke with earnestness, and his eyes 
(glorious conductors of the light within) burned with a 
steady fire which no one could mistake for mere affabil- 
ity; they were one grand expression of the well-known 
line: "I am a man, and interested in all that concerns 
humanity." In one hour and a half's conversation he 
touched on every topic that I brought before him with 
an even current of good sense, if he embellished it with 
little wit or verbal elegance. He spoke like a man who 
had felt as much as he had reflected, more than he had 
spoken; like one who had looked upon society rather in 
the mass than in detail, and who regarded the happi- 
ness of America but as the first link in a series of univer- 
sal victories; for his full faith in the power of those re- 

^ Lodge, II, 277. 



236 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

suits of civil liberty which he saw all around him led 
him to foresee that it would erelong, prevail in other 
countries and that the social millennium of Europe 
would usher in the political. When I mentioned to him 
the difference I perceived between the inhabitants of 
New England and of the Southern States, he remarked : 
"I esteem those people greatly, they are the stamina of 
the Union and its greatest benefactors. They are con- 
tinually spreading themselves too, to settle and en- 
lighten less favored quarters. Dr. Franklin is a New 
Englander." When I remarked that his observations 
were flattering to my country, he replied, with great 
good humor, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider 
your country the cradle of free principles, not their 
armchair. Liberty in England is a sort of idol; people 
are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see little of 
its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is be- 
tween high walls ; and the error of its government was in 
supposing that after a portion of their subjects had 
crossed the sea to live upon a common, they would per- 
mit their friends at home to build up those walls about 
them." 1 

We find among the allusions of several strangers 
who travelled in Virginia in Washington's later days, 
who saw him or perhaps even stayed at Mount Ver- 
non, some which are not complimentary. More than 
one story implies that he was a hard taskmaster, not 
only with the negroes, but with the whites. Some of 
the writers go out of their way to pick up unpleasant 
things. For instance, during his absence from home a 
mason plastered some of the rooms, and when Wash- 

1 Lodge, II, 338, 339. 



CONCLUSION 237 

ington returned he found the work had been badly 
done, and remonstrated. The mason died. His 
widow married another mason, who advertised that 
he would pay all claims against his forerunner. 
Thereupon Washington put in a claim for fifteen 
shillings, which was paid. Washington's detractors 
used this as a strong proof of his harshness. But 
they do not inform us whether the man was unable 
to pay, or whether the claim was dishonest. Since 
the man paid voluntarily and did not question the 
rightness of the amount, may we not at least infer 
that he had no quarrel? And if he had not, who else 
had.? 

Insinuations concerning Washington's lack of 
sympathy for his slaves was a form which in later 
days most of the references to his care of them took. 
But here also there are evident facts to be taken into 
account. The Abolitionists very naturally were 
prejudiced against every slave-owner; they were also 
prejudiced in favor of every slave. Washington, on 
the contrary, harbored no prepossessions for or 
against the black man. He found the slaves idle, 
incompetent, lazy, although he would not have de- 
nied that the very fact of slavery caused and in- 
creased these evils. He treated the negroes justly, 
but without any sentimentality. He found them in 
the order in which he lived. They were the workmen 



238 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

of his plantation; he provided them with food, cloth- 
ing, and a lodging; in return they were expected to 
give him their labor. It does not appear that the 
slaves on Washington's plantation endured any 
special hardship. A physician attended them at their 
master's expense when they were sick. That he 
obliged them to do their specified work, that he 
punished them in case of dishonesty, just as he 
would have done to white workmen, were facts 
which he never would have thought a rational person 
would have regarded as heinous. In his will he freed 
his slaves, not for the Abolitionist's reason, but be- 
cause he regarded slaver}^ as the most pernicious 
form of labor, debasing alike the slave and his mas- 
ter, uneconomic and most wasteful. 

But in so general a matter as Washington's treat- 
ment of his slaves, we must be careful not to take a 
solitary case and argue from it as if it were habitual. 
By common report his slaves were so well treated 
that they regretted it if there was talk of transferring 
them to other planters. We have many instances 
cited which show his unusual kindness. When he 
found, for instance, that a mulatto woman, who had 
lived many years with one of the negroes, had been 
transferred to another part of his domain and that 
the negro pined for her, he arranged to have her 
brought back so that they might pass their old age 



CONCLUSION 239 

together. The old negro was his servant, Billy Lee, 
who suffered an accident to his knee, which made 
him a cripple for the rest of his life. This he spent at 
Mount Vernon well cared for. Washington contin- 
ued to the end the old custom of supplying a hogs- 
head of rum for the negroes to drink at harvest time, 
always premising that they must partake of it spar- 
ingly. 

Washington's religious beliefs and practices have 
also occasioned much controversy. If we accept his 
own statements at their plain value, we must regard 
him as a Church of England man. I do not discover 
that he was in any sense an ardent believer. He pre- 
ferred to say "Providence" rather than "God," 
probably because it was less definite. He attended 
divine service on Sundays, whenever a church was 
near, but for a considerable period at one part of his 
life he did not attend communion. He thoroughly 
believed in the good which came from church-going 
in the army and he always arranged to have a service 
on Sundays during his campaigns. When at Mount 
Vernon, on days when he did not go out to the serv- 
ice, he spent several hours alone in meditation in his 
study. The religious precepts which he had been 
taught in childhood remained strong in him through 
life. He believed moral truths, and belief with him 
meant putting in practice what he professed. While 



240 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

he had imbibed much of the deistic spirit of the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century it would be inaccurate 
to infer that he was not fundamentally a Christian. 

After Washington withdrew to Mount Vernon, 
early in the spring of 1797, his time was chiefly de- 
voted to agriculture and the renewing of his life as a 
planter. He declined all public undertakings except 
that which President Adams begged him to assume 
— the supreme command of the army in case of the 
expected war with France. That new duty undoubt- 
edly was good for him, for it proved to him that at 
least all his official relations with the Government 
had not ceased, and it also served to cheer the people 
of the country to know that in case of military trou- 
ble their old commander would lead them once more. 
Washington gave so much attention to this work, 
which could be in the earlier stages arranged at 
Mount Vernon, that he felt justified in accepting 
part of the salary which the President allotted to 
him. But the war did not come. As Washington 
prophesied, the French thought better of their trucu- 
lence. The new genius who was ruling France had in 
mind something more grandiose than a war with the 
American Republic. 

On December 10, 1799, Washington sent a long 
letter to James Anderson in regard to agricultural 
plans for his farm during the year 1800. He calcu- 



CONCLUSION 241 

lates closely the probable profits, and specifies the 
rotation of crops on five hundred and twenty-five 
acres. The next day, December 12th, he wrote a 
short note to Alexander Hamilton, in regard to the 
organization of a National Military Academy, a 
matter in which the President had long been deeply 
interested. The day was stormy. " Morning snowing 
and about three inches drop. Wind at Northeast, 
and mercury at 30. Continued snowing till one 
o'clock, and about four it became perfectly clear. 
Wind in the same place, but not hard. Mercury 28 
at night." Washington, who scorned to take any 
account of weather, rode for five hours during the 
morning to several of the farms on his plantations, 
examining the conditions at each and conferring with 
the overseers. 

On reaching home he complained a little of chilli- 
ness. His secretary, Tobias Lear, observed that he 
feared he had got wet, but Washington protested 
that his greatcoat had kept him dry; in spite of which 
the observant Lear saw snow hanging to his hair and 
remarked that his neck was wet. Washington went 
in to dinner, which was waiting, without changing 
his dress, as he usually did. " In the evening he ap- 
peared as well as usual. The next day, Friday, there 
was a heavy fall of snow, but having a severe cold, 
he went out for only a little while to mark some 



242 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

trees, between the house and the river which were 
to be cut down. During the day his hoarseness in- 
creased, but he made light of it, and paid no heed 
to the suggestion that he should take something for 
it, only replying, as was his custom, that he would 
'let it go as it came.' " 

Mrs. Washington went upstairs to a room on the 
floor above to chat with Mrs. Lewis (Nelly Custis) 
who had recently been confined. W^ashington re- 
mained in the parlor with Lear, and when the eve- 
ning mail was brought in from the post-ofhce, they 
read the newspapers; W^ashington even reading 
aloud, as well as his sore throat would allow, any- 
thing "which he thought diverting or interesting." 
Then Lear read the debates of the Virginia As- 
sembly on the election of a Senator and Governor. 
"On hearing Mr. Madison's observations respecting 
Mr. Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke 
with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I 
endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always 
did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he 
appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold 
before mentioned, which he considered as trifling, 
and had been remarkably cheerful all the evening." 

At between two and three o'clock of Saturday 
morning, December 14th, Washington awoke Mrs. 
Washington and told her that he was very unwell 



CONCLUSION 243 

and had had an ague. She observed that he could 
hardly speak and breathed with difficulty. She 
wished to get up to call a servant, but he, fearing 
she might take cold, dissuaded her. When daylight 
appeared, the woman Caroline came and lighted the 
fire. Mrs. Washington sent her to summon Mr. 
Lear, and Washington asked that Mr. Rawlins, one 
of the overseers, should be summoned before the 
Doctor could arrive. Lear got up at once, dressed 
hastily, and went to the General's bedside. Lear 
wrote a letter to Dr. Craik, Washington's long- 
time friend and physician, and sent it off post-haste 
by a servant. Mrs. Washington was up. They pre- 
pared a mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter, but 
the patient could not swallow a drop; whenever he 
attempted it he appeared to be distressed, convulsed, 
and almost suffocated. 

" Mr. Rawlins came in soon after sunrise and pre- 
pared to bleed him. When the arm was ready, the 
General, observing that Rawlins appeared to be agi- 
tated, said, as well as he could speak, 'Don't be 
afraid,' and after the incision was made, he ob- 
served, 'The orifice is not large enough.' However, 
the blood ran pretty freely. Mrs. Washington, not 
knowing whether bleeding was proper or not in the 
General's situation, begged that much might not be 
taken from him, lest it should be injurious, and de- 



244 GEORGE- WASHINGTON 

sired me to stop it; but when I was about to untie the 
string, the General put up his hand to prevent it, 
and as soon as he could speak, he said, 'More.' 
Mrs. Washington being still very uneasy, lest too 
much blood should be taken, it was stopped after 
about half a pint was taken from him. 

"Finding that no relief was obtained from bleeding, 
and that nothing would go down the throat, I pro- 
posed bathing the throat externally with salvolatile 
which was done; during the operation, which was 
with the hand, in the gentlest manner, he^observed, 
"T is very sore.' A piece of flannel dipped in sal- 
volatile was then put round his neck. His feet were 
also bathed in warm water. This, however, gave no 
relief. In the meantime, before Dr. Craik arrived, 
Mrs. Washington requested me to send for Dr. 
Brown, of Port Tobacco, whom Dr. Craik had rec- 
ommended to be called, if any case should ever occur 
that was seriously alarming. I despatched a Mes- 
senger (Cyrus) to Dr. Brown immediately (between 
eight and nine o'clock). Dr. Craik came in soon af- 
ter, and after examining the General, he put a blister 
of Cantharide on the throat and took some more 
blood from him, and had some Vinegar and hot wa- 
ter put into a Teapot for the General to draw in the 
steam from the nozel, which he did as well as he was 
able. He also ordered sage tea and Vinegar to be 



CONCLUSION 245 

mixed for a Gargle. This the General used as often 
as desired; but when he held back his head to let it 
run down, it put him into great distress and almost 
produced suffocation. When the mixture came out 
of his mouth some phlegm followed it, and he would 
attempt to cough, which the Doctor encouraged him 
to do as much as he could ; but without effect — he 
could only make the attempt. 

"About eleven o'clock. Dr. Dick was sent for. Dr. 
Craik requested that Dr. Dick might be sent for, as 
he feared Dr. Brown would not come in time. A mes- 
sage was accordingly despatched for him. Dr. Craik 
bled the General again about this time. No effect, 
however, was produced by it, and he continued in 
the same state, unable to swallow anything. Dr. 
Dick came in about three o'clock, and Dr. Brown 
arrived soon after. Upon Dr. Dick's seeing the 
General, and consulting a few minutes with Dr. 
Craik, he was bled gain, the blood ran very slowly 
and did not produce any symptoms of fainting. 
Dr. Brown came into the chamber room soon after, 
and upon feeling the General's pulse &c., the Phy- 
sicians went out together. Dr. Craik soon after re- 
turned. The General could now swallow a little — 
about four o'clock Calomel and tartar emetic were 
administered; but without any effect. About half 
past four o'clock, he desired me to ask Mrs. Wash- 



246 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ington to come to his bedside — when he requested 
her to go down into his room and take from his desk 
two wills which she would find there, and bring them 
to him, which she did. Upon looking at them he 
gave her one, which he observed was useless, as it 
was superseded by the other, and desired her to burn 
it, which she did, and then took the other and put it 
away into her closet. After this was done, I re- 
turned again to his bedside and took his hand. He 
said to me, '1 find I am going, my breath cannot 
continue long; I believed from the first attack it 
would be fatal — do you arrange and record all my 
late military letters and papers — arrange my ac- 
counts and settle my books, as you know more 
about them than any one else, and let Mr. Rawhns 
finish recording my other letters.' He then asked if 
I recollected anything which it was essential for him 
to do, as he had but a very short time to continue 
with us. I told him that I could recollect nothing, 
but that I hoped he was not so near his end. He ob- 
served, smiling, that he certainly was, and that, as 
it was the debt which we all must pay, he looked to 
the event with perfect resignation. 

" In the course of the afternoon he appeared to be in 
great pain and distress, from the difficulty of breath- 
ing, and frequently changed his posture in the bed. 
On these occasions I lay upon the bed and endeav- 



CONCLUSION 247 

ored to raise him, and turn him with as much ease 
as possible. He appeared penetrated with gratitude 
for my attentions, and qften said, 'I am afraid I 
shall fatigue you too much ' ; and upon my answer- 
ing him, that I could feel nothing but a wish to give 
him ease, he replied, 'Well, it is a debt we must pa}^ 
to each other, and I hope, when you want aid of this 
kind, you will find it.' He asked when Mr. Lewis 
and Washington ^ would return. They were then 
in New Kent. I told him I believed about the 20th 
of the month. He made no reply. 

"About five o'clock Dr. Craik came again into the 
room, and upon going to the bedside the General 
said to him: 'Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid 
to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should 
not survive it. My breath cannot last long.' The 
Doctor pressed his hand, but could not utter a word. 
He retired from the bedside, and sat by the fire ab- 
sorbed in grief. The physicians, Dr. Dick and Dr. 
Brown, again came in (between five and six o'clock), 
and when they came to his bedside. Dr. Craik asked 
him if he could sit up in the bed. He held out his 
hand to me and was raised up, when he said to the 
Physicians: 'I feel myself going. I thank you for 
your attention — you had better not take any more 
trouble about me; but let me go off quietly; I cannot 
* George Washington Parke Custis. 



248 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

last long.' They found out that all which had been 
done was of no effect. He lay down again, and all re- 
tired except Dr. Craik. He continued in the same 
position, uneasy and restless, but without complain- 
ing; frequently asking what hour it was. When I 
helped to move him at this, he did not speak, but 
looked at me with strong expressions of gratitude. 
The Doctor pressed his hand, but could not utter a 
word. He retired from the bedside, and sat by the 
fire absorbed in grief. About eight o'clock the Physi- 
cians came again into the Room and applied blisters, 
and cataplasms of wheat bran, to his legs and feet: 
but went out (except Dr. Craik) without a ray of 
hope. I went out about this time, and wrote a line 
to Mr. Low and Mr. Peter requesting them to come 
with their wives (Mrs. Washington's granddaugh- 
ters) as soon as possible. 

"From this time he appeared to breathe with less 
difficulty than he had done; but was very restless, 
constantly changing his position to endeavor to get 
ease. I aided him all in my power, and was gratified 
in believing he felt it: for he would look upon me 
with his eyes speaking gratitude; but unable to utter 
a word without great distress. About ten o'clock he 
made several attempts to speak to me before he 
could effect it. At length, he said: ' I am just going. 
Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be 



CONCLUSION 249 

put into the Vault in less than three days after I am 
dead.' I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He 
then looked at me again, and said, ' Do you under- 
stand me.'^' I replied, 'Yes, sir.' 

""Tis well,' said he. About ten minutes before 
he expired his breathing became much easier; he lay 
quietly; he withdrew his hand from mine and felt his 
own pulse. I spoke to Dr. Craik who sat by the fire; 
he came to the bedside. The General's hand fell from 
his wrist. I took it in mine and laid it upon my 
breast. Dr. Craik put his hand on his e^^es and he 
expired without a struggle or a Sigh! While we were 
fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington, who was sit- 
ting at the foot of the bed, asked, with a firm and 
collected voice, ' Is he gone.^^ ' I could not speak, but 
held up my hand as a signal that he was. * 'T is 
well,' said she in a plain voice. 'All is now over. I 
have no more trials to pass through. I shall soon fol- 
low him.'" ^ 

Once read, honest Tobias Lear's account of Wash- 
ington's death will hardly be forgotten. It has a 
majestic simplicity which we feel must have ac- 
companied Washington in his last hours. The homely 
sick-bed details; his grim fortitude; his willingness 
to do everything which the physicians recommended, 

^ Ford, XIV, 246-52. I have copied Tobias Lear's remarkable ac- 
count of Washington's death almost verbatim. 



250 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

not because he wanted to live, nor because he thought 
they would help him, but because he wished to obey. 
We see him there trying to force out the painful 
words from his constricted throat and when he was 
unable to whisper even a "thank you" for some 
service done, Lear read the unuttered gratitude in 
his eyes. The faithful Lear, lying on the outside of 
the bed in order to be able to help turn Washington 
with less pain, and poor old Dr. Craik, lifelong friend, 
who became too moved to speak, so that he sat off 
near the fire in silence except for a stifled sob, and 
Mrs. Washington, placed near the foot of the bed, 
waiting patiently in complete self-control. She 
seemed to have determined that the last look which 
her mate of forty years had of her should not portray 
helpless grief. And from time to time the negro 
slaves came to the door that led into the entry and 
they peered into the room very reverently, and with 
their emotions held in check, at their dying master. 
And then there was a ceasing of the pain and the 
breathing became easier and quieter and Dr. Craik 
placed his hand over the life-tired eyes and Wash- 
ington was dead without a struggle or even a 
sigh. 

The pathos or tragedy of it lies in the fact that all 
the devices and experiments of the doctors could 
avail nothing. The quinsy sore throat which killed 



CONCLUSION 251 

him could not be cured by any means then known 
to medical art. The practice of bleeding, which by 
many persons was thought to have killed him, was 
then so widely used that his doctors would have been 
censured if they had omitted it. Sixty years later it 
was still in use, and no one can doubt that it de- 
prived Italy's great statesman of his chance of living. 
The premonition of Washington on his first seizure 
with the quinsy that the end had come proved fa- 
tally true. 

The news of Washington's death did not reach 
the capital until Wednesday, December i8th. The 
House immediately adjourned. On the following 
day, when it reassembled, John Marshall delivered 
a brief tribute and resolutions were passed to attend 
the funeral and to pay honor " to the memory of the 
Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts 
of his countrymen." The immortal phrase was by 
Colonel Henry Lee, the father of General Robert E. 
Lee. President Adams, in response to a letter from 
the Senate of the United States, used the less happy 
phrase, "If a Trajan found a Pliny, a Marcus Au- 
relius can never want biographers, eulogists, or his- 
torians." 

During the days immediately following Washing- 
ton's death, preparations were made at Mount Ver- 
non for the funeral. They sent to Alexandria for a 



252 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

coffin and Dr. Dick measured the body, which he 
found to be exactly six feet three and one half inches 
in length. The family vault was on the slope of the 
hill, a little to the south of the house. Mrs. Washing- 
ton desired that a door should be made for the vault 
instead of having it closed up as formerly, after the 
body should be deposited, observing that "it will 
soon be necessary to open it again." Mourning 
clothes were prepared for the family and servants. 
The ceremony took place on Wednesday. There 
were many troops. Eleven pieces of artillery were 
brought down from Alexandria and a schooner be- 
longing to Mr. R. Hamilton came down and lay off 
Mount Vernon to fire minute guns. The pall-holders 
were Colonels Little, Charles Sims, Payne, Gilpin, 
Ramsay, and Marsteller, and Colonel Blackburne 
walked before the corpse. Colonel Deneal marched 
with the military. About three o'clock the proces- 
sion began to move. Colonels Little, Sims and Deneal 
and Dr. Dick directed the arrangements of the pro- 
cession. This moved out through the gate at the left 
wing of the house and proceeded around in front 
of the lawn and down to the vault on the right wing 
of the house. The procession was as follows: The 
troops; horse and foot; music playing a solemn dirge 
with muffled drums; the clergy, viz.: the Reverends 
Mr. Davis, Mr. James Miner, and Mr. Moffatt, and 



CONCLUSION 253 

Mr. Addison; the General's horse, with his saddle, 
holsters, and pistols, led by two grooms, Cyrus and 
Wilson, in black; the body borne by officers and 
Masons who insisted upon carrying it to the grave; 
the principal mourners, viz. : Mrs. Stuart and Mrs. 
Low, Misses Nancy and Sally Stuart, Miss Fairfax, 
and Miss Dennison, Mr. Low and Mr. Peter, Dr. 
Craik and T. Lear; Lord Fairfax and Ferdinando 
Fairfax; Lodge No. 23; Corporation of Alexandria. 
All other persons, preceded by Mr. Anderson, Mr. 
Rawlins, the Overseers, etc., etc. 

The Reverend Mr. Davis read the service and 
made a short extempore speech. The Masons per- 
formed their ceremonies and the body was deposited 
in the vault. All then returned to the house and 
partook of some refreshment, and dispersed with the 
greatest good order and regularity. The remains of 
the provisions were distributed among the blacks. 
Mr. Peter, Dr. Craik, and Dr. Thornton tarried here 
all night. ^ 

The Committee appointed by Congress to plan a 
suitable memorial for Washington proposed a monu- 
ment to be erected in the city of Washington, to be 
adorned with statuary symbolizing his career as 
General and as President, and containing a tomb for 
himself and for Mrs. Washington. The latter replied 
^ From notes by T. Lear, Ford, xiv, 254-55. 



254 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

to President Adams that "taught by the great ex- 
ample which I have so long had before me, never to 
oppose my private wishes to the public will, I must 
consent to the request made by Congress, which you 
have had the goodness to transmit me, and in doing 
this, I need not say, I cannot say, what a sacrifice of 
individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty." 
The intended monument at the capital was never 
erected. Martha Washington lies beside her hus- 
band where she wished to be, in the family vault at 
Mount Vernon. From her chamber window in the 
upper stor^^ of the Mount Vernon house she could 
look across the field to the vault. She died in 1802, 
a woman of rare discretion and good sense who, dur- 
ing forty years, proved herself the worthiest com- 
panion of the founder of his country. 

I have wished to write this biography of George 
Washington so that it would explain itself. There is 
no need of eulogy. All eulogy is superfluous. We see 
the young Virginia boy, born in aristocratic condi- 
tions, with but a meagre education, but trained by 
the sports and rural occupations of his home in per- 
fect manliness, in courage, in self-reliance, in re- 
sourcefulness. Some one instilled into him moral 
precepts which fastened upon his young conscience 
and would not let him go. At twenty he was phys- 



CONCLUSION 255 

ically a young giant capable of enduring any hard- 
ship and of meeting any foe. He ran his surveyor's 
chain far into the wilderness to the west of Mount 
Vernon. When hardly a man in age, the State of 
Virginia knew of his qualities and made him an 
officer in its militia. At only twenty-three he was 
invited to accompany General Braddock's staff, but 
neither he nor angels from heaven could prevent 
Braddock from plunging with typical British bull- 
headed ness into the fatal Indian ambush. He gave 
up border warfare, but did not cease to condemn the 
inadequacy of the Virginia military equipment and 
its training. He devoted himself to the pursuits of a 
large planter, and on being elected a Burgess, he at- 
tended regularly the sessions at Williamsburg. Wild 
conditions which in his bo3'hood had reached almost 
to Fauquier County, had drifted rapidly westward. 
Within less than ten years of Braddock's defeat, 
Fort Duquesne had become permanently English 
and the name of Pittsburgh reminded men of the 
great British statesman who had urged on the fate- 
ful British encroachment on the Ohio River. For 
Washington in person, the lasting effect of the early 
training and fighting in western Pennsylvania was 
that it gave him direct knowledge of the Indian and 
his ways, and that it turned his imagination to think- 
ing out the problem of developing the Middle West, 



256 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

and of keeping the connections between the East and 
the West strong and open. 

In the House of Burgesses W^ashington was a 
taciturn member, yet he seemed to have got a great 
deal of poHtical knowledge and wisdom so that his 
colleagues thought of him as the solid man of the 
House and they referred many matters to him as if 
for final decision. He followed political affairs in the 
newspapers. Above all, at Mount Vernon he heard 
all sides from the guests who passed his domain and 
enjoyed his hospitality. From the moment that the 
irritation between Great Britain and the Colonies 
became bitter he seems to have made up his mind 
that the contention of the Colonists was just. After 
that he never wavered, but he was not a sudden or 
a shallow clamorer for Independence. He believed 
that the sober second sense of the British would lead 
them to perceive that they had made a mistake. 
When at length the Colonies had to provide them- 
selves with an army and to undertake a war, he was 
the only candidate seriously considered for General, 
although John Hancock, who had made his peacock 
way so successfully in many walks of life, thought 
that he alone was worthy of the position. Who shall 
describe Washington's life as Commander-in-Chief 
of the Colonial forces during the Revolutionary War? 
W^hat other commander ever had a task like his? 



CONCLUSION 257 

For a few weeks the troops led by Napoleon — the 
barefooted and ragged heroes of Lodi and Areola 
and Marengo — were equally destitute, but victory 
brought them food and clothes and prosperity. 
Whereas Washington's men had no comfort before 
victory and none after it. 

Some of the military critics to-day deny Wash- 
ington's right to be ranked among the great military 
commanders of the world, but the truth is that he 
commanded during nearly eight years and won one 
of the supreme crucial wars of history against far 
superior forces. The General who did that was no 
understrapper. The man whose courage diffused 
itself among the ten thousand starving soldiers at 
Valley Forge, and enabled them to endure against 
the starvation and distress of a winter, may very 
well fail to be classified among the Prince Ruperts 
and the Marshal Neys of battle, but he ranks first in 
a higher class. His Fabian policy, which troubled 
so many of his contemporaries, saved the American 
Revolution. His title as General is secure. Nor 
should we forget that it was his scrupulous patriot- 
ism which prevented the cropping out of militarism 
in this country. 

Finally, a country which owed its existence to him 
chose him to be for eight years its first President. 
He saw the planting of the roots of the chief organs 



258 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

of its government. In every act he looked far for- 
ward into the future. He shunned making or fol- 
lowing evil precedents. He endured the most viru- 
lent personal abuse that has ever been poured out 
on American public men, preferring that to using 
the power which his position gave him, and denatur- 
ing the President into a tyrant. Nor should we fail 
to honor him for his insistence on dignity and a proper 
respect for his office. His enemies sneered at him for 
that, but we see plainly how much it meant to this 
new Nation to have such qualities exemplified. Had 
Thomas Jefferson been our first President in his 
sans-culotte days, our Government might not have 
outlasted the sans-culottist enthusiasts in France. A 
man is known by his friends. The chosen friends 
of Washington were among the best of his time 
in America. Hamilton, Henry Knox, Nathanael 
Greene, John Jay, John Marshall — these v/ere 
some. 

Although Washington was less learned than many 
of the men of his time in political theory and history, 
he excelled them all in a concrete application of prin- 
ciples. He had the widest acquaintance among men 
of different sorts. He heard all opinions, but never 
sacrificed his own. As I have said earlier, he was the 
most actual statesman of his time ; the people in Vir- 
ginia came very early to regard him as a man apart; 



CONCLUSION 259 

this was true of the later days when the Government 
sat in New York and Philadelphia. If they sought 
a reason, they usually agreed that Washington ex- 
celled by his character, and if you analyze most 
closely you will never get deeper than that. Re- 
served he was, and not a loose or glib talker, but he 
always showed his interest and gave close attention. 
After Yorktown, when the United States proclaimed 
to the world that they were an independent Repub- 
lic, Europe recognized that this was indeed a Repub- 
lic unlike all those which had preceded it during an- 
tiquity and the Middle Age. Foreigners doubted that 
it could exist. They doubted that Democracy could 
ever govern a nation. They knew despots, like the 
Prussian King, Frederic, who walked about the 
streets of Berlin and used his walking-stick on the 
cringing persons whom he passed on the sidewalk 
and did not like the looks of. They remembered the 
crazy Czar, Peter, and they knew about the insane 
tendencies of the British sovereign, George. The 
world argued from these and other examples that 
monarchy was safe; it could not doubt that the sup- 
ply of monarchs would never give out; but it had no 
hope of a Republic governed by a President. It was 
George Washington more than any other agency 
who made the world change its mind and conclude 
that the best President was the best kind of monarch. 



260 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

It is reported that after he died many persons 
who had been his neighbors and acquaintances con- 
fessed that they had always felt a peculiar sense of 
being with a higher sort of person in his presence: a 
being not superhuman, but far above common men. 
That feeling will revive in the heart of any one to-day 
who reads wisely in the fourteen volumes of "Wash- 
ington's Correspondence," in which, as in a mine, are 
buried the passions and emotions from which sprang 
the American Revolution and the American Consti- 
tution. That George Washington lived and achieved 
is the justification and hope of the United States. 



THE END 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Throughout the index, the initial W. is used for the name of 
George Washington. 



Adams, John, his Diary quoted, 57 
«.; on committee to confer with 
Howe, 79; on Peace Commission, 
130; chosen first Vice-President, 
176; appoints W. Commander-in- 
Chief, in 1799, 217, 240; letter of 
W. to, 217; 49, 59, 155, 156, 162, 
180, 212, 215, 217, 231, 251, 254. 

Adams, Samuel, 49, 57, 59, 60, 162, 

175, 176. 

Addison, Rev. Mr., 253. 

Agriculturist, W. as an, 37 ff. 

Albert, Prince, 153. 

Alleghany Mts., 7. 

American Revolution, 64-126 pas- 
sim; great extent of field of opera- 
tions, 67; really ended with surren- 
der at Yorktown, 126; nature and 
results of, 126-128; proclamation 
of end of hostilities, 135; saved by 
T^.'s Fabian policy, 257. 

Ames, Fisher, speech on Jay Treaty, 
and its effect, 211-213. 

Anderson, James, 240, 253. 

Andre, John, Clinton's messenger 
to Arnold, court-martialed and 
hanged, no, iii. 

Annapolis Convention, 158. 

Anti-Assumptionists. See State 
debts. 

Anti-Federalists, 186. 

Army, Colonial, at Boston, 69 ff.; 
brought into order by W., 72; 
lacks powder, 72 ; compels evacua- 
tion of Boston, 72, 73; how distrib- 
uted, 76, 77; W. on proper organ- 
ization of, 80, 81 ; his influence 
over, 82, 88; condition of, at end of 
1776, 84; desertions from, 84, 97; 



at Valley Forge, 100 ff.; W. on 
condition of, after the war, 131, 
132; difficulties about back pay, 
I33> 134. 141; some officers of, in- 
trigue to make W. king, 134; W.'s 
reply, 135; continued turmoil in, 
135; W.'s farewell to officers of, 
136, 137; attitude of Congress to- 
ward, 139, 140. 

Arnold, Benedict, repulsed at Que- 
bec, 72; surrenders West Point, 
no; in Virginia, 122, 123; 77. 

Articles of Confederation, 152, 153, 
156. And see States of the Con- 
federation. 

Assumptionists. See State debts. 

Aurora. See Bache, B. F. 

Bache, Benjamin F., attacks W.'s 
administration, in the A urora, 201 , 
219, 221, 222. 

Ball, Mary, marries Augustine 
W^ashington, i. And see Washing- 
ton, Mary (Ball). 

Barbados, I^.'s visit to, 9-1 1. 

Barbary States, corsairs of, 155. 

Bard, Dr. Samuel, 185, 186. 

Beaumarchais, Caron de, 94. 

Beefsteak and Tripe Club, 10. 

Belvoir, Fairfax estate, 7. 

Bennington, Battle of, 92. 

Bernard, John, quoted on W. in re- 
tirement, 234-236. 

Blackwood' s Magazine, 3. 

Blair, John, 161. 

Bland, Theodorick, letter of W. to, 

131, 132. 
Bonhomme Richard, the. 5ee Jones, 
John Paul. 



264 



INDEX 



Boston, port of, transferred to Sa- 
lem, 58; blockaded by W., 69; 
evacuated by Howe, 72, 73; W.'s 
visit to, as President, 189, 190. 

Boston Tea Party, 58. 

Botetourt, Norborne Berkeley, Lord, 

53- 

Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, 41. 

Braddock, Edward, his career, 19, 
20; in America, 20; attacks Fort 
Duquesne, and is defeated and 
killed, 21, 22; 255. 

Bradford, William, 229. 

Brant, Joseph, 92. 

British troops, position of, at end of 
^77^, 83, 84, 85; confined to New 
York City and Long Island, 86; 
W. on maltreatment of prisoners 
by, 98; field of operations of, 
transferred to South, 107, 121- 
123; surrender of, at Yorktown, 
123 #• 

Brown, Dr., 244, 245, 247, 248. 

Bunker Hill, Battle of, 65, 68. 

Burgoyne, John, takes Ticonderoga, 
91; defeated at Bennington, 92; 
surrenders to Gates at Saratoga, 

93- 
Burke, Edmund, 55, 62, 120, 
Bute, John Stuart, Earl of, 29, 49. 
Butler, Pierce, 162. 
Byrd, William, letter of W. to, 20, 

21. 

Calvert, Nelly, 42. 

Cambridge, W. takes command of 
army at, 65; W.'s headquarters 
at, 69. 

Canada, and Wolfe's victory at 
Quebec, 28. 

Canova, Antonio, statue of W. by, 
148. 

Capital, national, question of loca- 
tion of, 182-185. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 17. 

Carroll, Daniel, 161. 

Cavour, Camillo, Count di, 30, 251. 

Chamberlayne, Major, 33. 



Channing, Edward, History of the 
U.S., Ill n. 

Chantrey, Sir F. L., statue of W., 
148. 

Cherry-tree story, absurdity of, 2. 

Cincinnati, Society of the, public 
feeling against, 159; W. resigns 
presidency of, 159. 

Clark, Major, 10. 

Clinton, George, Governor of New 
York, 136, 199. 

Clinton, Sir Henry, succeeds Howe as 
Commander-in-Chief, 105; takes 
troops to New York, 106; was he 
responsible for bribing Arnold? 
109, no; W.'s criticism of, 118, 
119; 93, 121, 123. 

Clive, Robert, Lord, 28. 

Clymer, George, 161. 

Colonies, effect of Seven Years' War 
on, 29; opposition to taxation in, 
49 jf.; at outbreak of war, 67; di- 
versity in origin and customs, 67, 
68; increasing urgency of demand 
for independence in, 75; relations 
of, with England, in 1763, 47; 
how affected by the Imperial 
Spirit, 47, 48; in 1770, 53, 54; at 
beginning of Revolution, 66; lack 
of ardor for Independence, 84. 

Committees of Correspondence, 57, 
58. 

Compromises of the Constitution. 
See Representation, Slave trade, 
Slavery. 

Concord, Battle of, 64. 

Congress of the U.S. : 

First: W.'s first address to, 179; 
votes to assume state debts and 
change location of capital, 182- 
185. 

Fourth: Jay Treaty ratified by 
Senate, 210; bill to carry out 
treaty provisions passed by House, 
210-213. 

Sixth: revives rank of Com- 
mander-in-Chief for W., 217; and 
W.'s death, 251, 253, 254. 



INDEX 



265 



Connecticut, population of, in 1775, 
68. 

Constitution of the U.S., in the mak- 
ing, 164-168; promulgated, 168, 
169; W.'s views of, 170, 171, 172; 
ratified by States, 173-175; oppo- 
sition to, in N.Y. and Virginia, 

174- 

Constitutional Convention, call for, 
158; first meeting of, 160; mem- 
bers of, 160-162; W. President of, 
161, 163; proceedings of, secret, 
163; divers questions discussed, 
164-168, 169, 170. 

Continental Congress: 

First: members of, 59; work of, 
59-61; adopts Declaration of 
Rights, 60; importance of, as a 
symbol, 61. 

Second: elects W. Commander- 
in-Chief, 64; sectional intrigues 
in, 74; W. quoted on, 75; appoints 
committee to confer with Howe, 
79; and W.'s "doleful reports," 
81; removes to Baltimore, 85; 
method of conducting the war, 90 ; 
W.'s farewell reception by, and 
address to, 137-139; post-war 
attitude of, toward the army, dis- 
cussed, 141, 142; powers of, lim- 
ited by Articles of Confederation, 
152, 153; its weakness, 153; lack 
of unanimity in, 155; rejects Span- 
ish treaty, 155; orders first elec- 
tion under Constitution, 175. 

Conway, Thomas, and the Cabal, 
112, 113; letters of, to W., 113; 96. 

Conway Cabal, The, 112-114, 116, 
117. 

Cornwallis, Charles, Earl, surrenders 
at Yorktown, 123. 

Cowpens, Battle of the, 122. 

Craik, Dr. James, attends W. in his 
last illness, 243 jf.; 253. 

Critical Period of American History, 

151 #. 
Custis, Daniel P., 33, 34. 
Custis, Eleanor, W.'s affection for, 



233, 234. And see Lewis, Eleanor 

(Custis). 
Custis, George W. P., 233, 247. 
Custis, John Parke, W.'s step-son, 

40-42; 104. 
Custis, Mrs. Martha (Dandridge), 

widow of D. P. Custis, is courted 

by W., 33, 34, and marries him, 

35. And see Washington, Martha 

(Custis). 
Custis, Martha, W.'s step-daughter, 

40, 41. 

Dandridge, Francis, letter of W. to, 
51,52. 

Davis, Rev. Mr., 252, 253. 

Deane, Silas, sent to enlist aid of 
France, 94; his unauthorized prom- 
ises to Ducoudray, 95, and La- 
fayette, 99. 

Declaration of Independence, 78, 
191. 

"Declaration of Rights," 60. 

Delaware River, W.'s crossing of, 
85, 86. 

Democracy in the U.S., contrasted 
with earlier types, 178. 

Democratic Party, 186. 

Dent, Elizabeth, 31. 

Dick, Dr., 245, 247, 248, 252. 

Dickinson, John, 161. 

Dinwiddle, Robert, sends W. on 
mission to French, 14; sends ex- 
pedition under Fry to take Du- 
quesne, 15; 16, 17, 18, 20, 21. 

Dorchester, Guy Carleton, Lord, 
208. 

Dorchester Heights, occupied by 
Americans, 73. 

Ducoudray, M., 95. 

Election, first, under Constitution, 

175, 176. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, 59, 161. 

England, expeditions planned by, 
19 ^.; effect of Chatham's ad- 
ministration on power and pres- 
tige of, 27, 28; relations with Colo- 



266 



INDEX 



nies in 1763, 47; the Imperial 
Spirit in, 47 ff. ; measures impos- 
ing taxation on Colonies, 49 ff.; 
division of opinion in, in 1770, 53, 
54, 55; Hessians in service of, 76; 
effect of sea-power of, 84; plans 
for campaign of 1777, 90, 91; 
sends Commission to treat for 
peace, 109, 120; reconstruction of 
government in, after Yorktown, 
130; and W.'s proclamation of 
neutrality (1789), 204; hatred of, 
in U.S., and the Jay Treaty, 
208 ff.\ threat of war with, 208, 
209; and the U.S. in 1796 and 
1914, 227, 228. And see Paris, 
Treaty of (1783). 

England and France, rivalry be- 
tween in North America, 12, 13; 
actually at war, 19; effect of 
Wolfe's victory at Quebec, 28; 
war between (1789), 193; diffi- 
culty in maintaining neutrality 
of U.S., 193 #. 

"Entangling alliances," authorship 
of the phrase, 227. 

Estaing, Charles H., Count d', 
brings French fleet to America, 
108. 

Excise tax, on distilled spirits, 189; 
and the Whiskey Insurrection, 
218. 

Fairfax, Bryan, letter of W. to, 62, 
63; 253. 

Fairfax, Sally, 31. 

Fairfax, Thomas, Lord, employs W. 
to survey his estate, 5; 7. 

Farewell Address, the, 224^.; decla- 
rations of, how far applicable in 
1914, 227, 228. 

Fauchet, Joseph, 229. 

Fauntleroy, Betsy, 30. 

Fauquier, Francis, 35. 

Federalist, The, 162. 

Federalist Party, break-up of, 228; 
186, 187. 

Fitzsimmons, Thomas, l6l. 



Fort Duquesne, built by French, 13; 
unsuccessfully attacked by Brad- 
dock, 21 ff.; renamed Fort Pitt, 

34,255- 

Fort Necessity, surrender of, 16, 17. 

Fox, Charles James, 55. 

France, steps toward alliance with, 
94_/f. ; effect of victory at Saratoga 
in, 99; treaty with, 99 and «.; re- 
sults of alliance on American 
commerce and privateering, 108; 
sends fleet to America, 108; effect 
in England of alliance with, 119; 
and W.'s proclamation of neutral- 
ity, 204; effect of feeling of grati- 
tude to, in U.S., 205; later rela- 
tions with, 215, 216; and the U.S. 
in 1796 and 1914, 227, 228. And 
see England and France. 

Franklin, Benjamin, on committee 
to confer with Howe, 79; on Peace 
Commission, 130; quoted, 173; 21, 
155, 160, 161, 201, 236. 

Frederick the Great, 259. 

Freedom of speech, W. and, 222, 
223. 

Freemasons, at W.'s funeral, 253. 

French, westward and southward 
progress of, 13; build Fort Du- 
quesne, 13. 

French Committee of Public Safety, 
Monroe's letter to, 216. 

French and Indian War. See Seven 
Years' War. 

French Revolution, reaction of, in 
U.S., 193/. 

Freneau, Philip, and his National 
Gazette, encouraged by Jefferson, 
200, 201, 219, 220. 

Fry, Colonel, 15. 

Gage, Thomas, military and civil 
governor of Boston, 61 ; W. quoted 
on his conduct, 63; recalled, 72. 

Gallatin, Albert, opposes Jay Treaty, 
210, 211. 

Gates, Horatio, Adjutant-General, 
71 ; defeats Burgoyne at Saratoga, 



INDEX 



267 



92, 93; ambitious to supplant W., 
114; 112. 

Genet, Edmond Charles, mission of, 
to U.S., 194 _^.; would appeal to 
people over gov'ernment, 198, 205; 
snubbed by Jefferson, 198; his re- 
call requested, 199. 

George II, 18. 

George III, dismisses Pitt, 29; and 
the British Empire, 48; makes 
North Prime Minister, 54; effect 
of events of 1778 on, 119; and of 
the failure of the Commission on 
Reconciliation, 120; 60, 130, 153, 

259. 

Georgetown, proposed as seat of 
national capital, 184. 

Georgia, only colony unrepresented 
in First Continental Congress, 
59; British victories in, 122; 165. 

Gerry, Elbridge, on X.Y.Z. mission 
to France, 215; 161, 168, 169. 

Giles, William B., and newspaper 
attacks on W., 219, 221. 

Gist, Christopher, 14. 

Gladstone, W. E., quoted, 173. 

Gorham, Nathaniel, 161. 

Great Britain. See England. 

Great Meadows. See Fort Neces- 
sity. 

Greene, Nathanael, commands in 
South, 122; no, 162, 163, 258. 

"Half- King, the." See Thanaca- 
rishon. 

Hamilton, Alexander, influence of, 
ensures ratification of Constitu- 
tion in N.Y., 174; Secretary of 
Treasury, 181, 228, 229; opposi- 
tion to, 181, 182; favors "Assump- 
tion," 182, 183; obtains Jefferson's 
support for compromise, 183, 184; 
his political status, 187; his pro- 
tective tariff", 188; his measures 
tended to centralization, 189, 192; 
quoted, on the French Revolu- 
tion, 197, 198; W. seeks to keep 
peace between Jefferson and, 199, 



200; attacked by Freneau, 200; 
attacks Jefferson in newspapers, 
201; urges W. to accept second 
term, 201; and the Whiskey In- 
surrection, 218; and the Farewell 
Address, 224; 59, 160, 167, 168, 
180, 195, 208, 210, 217, 241, 258. 

Hancock, John, President of Con- 
gress, 64; letter of W. to, 80, 81 ; 
Governor of Massachusetts, and 
W.'s visit to Boston, 189, 190; 64, 
256. 

Harlem, Heights of, army stationed 
on, 80. 

Harrison, Benjamin, letter of W. to, 

143- 

Hay, Anthony, 53. 

Henry, Patrick, quoted, 50; opposed 
to Constitution, 174; 59, 60, 162. 

Herkimer, Nicholas, 92. 

Hessians, in British army, 76; de- 
feated at Trenton, 86. 

Hortalaz et Cie, 94. 

Houdon, Jean A., statue of W., 148. 

House of Representatives, represen- 
tation of States in, 167. 

Howe, Richard, Lord, takes fleet to 
N.Y., 76; 72, 83. 

Howe, Sir William, evacuates Bos- 
ton, 72, 73; fruitless peace over- 
tures of, 79; in Phila. (1777-78), 
104, 105; succeeded by Clinton, 
105; 74, 78, 87, 91. 

Humphreys, Colonel, as Chamber- 
lain at President's receptions, 
180, 181. 

Imperial Spirit, effect of, on relations 
between England and Colonies, 47, 
48; revived by events of 1778, 119. 

Independence Hall, Phila., 160. 

Indians, surprise attack by, 21, 22; 
difficulties of W.'s administration 
with, 190, 191. 

Ingersoll, Jared, 161. 

Irving, Washington, Life of Wash- 
ington, quoted, 181, 185, 186, 195, 
217, 233. 



268 



INDEX 



Jackson, Robert, 24. 

Jacobin Club, 193. 

Jay, John, on Peace Commission, 
130; concludes treaty with Spain, 
155; appointed Chief Justice, 186; 
mission of, to England in 1794-95, 
207; his character, 207; prejudice 
against, in U.S., 208; Secretary of 
State, 228; letters of W. to, 142, 
157; 59. 162, 180, 258. And see 
Jay Treaty. 

Jay Treaty, the, negotiated, 207, 
208, 209; opposition of Anti- 
Federalists to, 209; ratified by 
Senate, 210; violent struggle over, 
in House, 210-213; how the con- 
troversy was settled, 213; effect 
of, 214; and the Federalist Party, 
228. 

Jefferson, Thomas, A Summary 
View, 60; Secretary of State, 181, 
186, 192, 228, 229; interview with 
Hamilton on Assumption, etc., 
183-185; most aggressive of Dem- 
ocrats, 187, 191; rivalry with 
Hamilton, 192; and the French 
Revolution, 193; and Citizen Ge- 
n6t, 194, 195, 198; PF. seeks to keep 
peace between Hamilton and, 
199, 200; and Freneau's attacks 
on W., 200, 219, 220, 221; in- 
trigues against Hamilton, 200, 
201; urges W. to accept second 
term, 201, 202; resigns as Secre- 
tary of State, 206; 59, 155, 160, 
161, 162, 180, 181, 207, 227, 258. 

Johnson, W. S., 168. 

Joncaire, M., 14. 

Jones, John Paul, 120, I2I. 

Jumonville, M. de, 15, 18. 

Kalb, Baron Johann de, 95, lOO. 

King, Rufus, 161, 167, 168. 

Knox, Henry, Secretary of War, 
181, 229; letters of W. to, 170, 
171, 203; 95, 123, 124, 136, 217, 
231, 258. 

Kosciuszko, Tadeusz, 95. 



Lafayette, Gilbert Motier, Marquis 

de, joins W.'s staff, 99; and 

Charles Lee, at Monmouth, 115; 

letters of W. to, 143, 144, 145, 170, 

171, 172; no, 123. 
Lansing, John, 161. 
Laurens, Henry, letters of W. to, 

101-103, 117, 118. 
Lear, Tobias, secretary to W,, 148; 

quoted, 242; his account of W.'s 

last hours, 243-249; notes on W.'s 

funeral, 252, 253; 232, 241, 250. 
Lee, Billy (slave), 238, 239. 
Lee, Charles, appointed Major- 

General, 70, 71; at Monmouth, 

106, 115; censured by W., 106, 

115, 116; early career of, 114, 115; 

court-martialed, and leaves the 

army, 116; anecdote of, 116 n.; 

65, 128. 
Lee, Charles, Attorney-General, 229. 
Lee, Henry, author of phrase, " First 

in war," etc., 251 ; letter of W. to, 

221, 222. 
Lee, Richard H., letters of W. to, 96, 

147; 163. 
Lewis, Mrs. Eleanor (Custis), 242. 
Lewis, Lawrence, and Miss Custis, 

232, 233; 247. 
Lexington, Battle of, 63. 
Lillo, George, George Barnwell, 10, 

II. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 149. 
Lincoln, Benjamin, surrenders 

Charleston, S.C., 122; receives 

surrender of British at Yorktown, 

125; 123. 
Livingston, Robert R., 59; 177. 
Lodge, H. C, George Washington, 

quoted, 15, 17, 220, 235, 236. 
Long Island, Battle of, 77, 78. 
Louis XVI, execution of, 193; 94, 99. 
Low-Land Beauty, the, 30. 
Loyalists, in the Colonies, 61, 62; 

during and after the war, 127, 

128. 

McClellan, George B., 82. 



INDEX 



269 



McClurg, James, 162. 

McHenry, James, Secretary of War, 

229; letter of, to W., 217; 161, 

231, 232. 
McKean, Thomas, 59. 
MacKenzie, Robert, letter of W. to, 

63. . 

Machiavelll, Niccolo, The Prince, 
and W.'s Farewell Address, 226. 

Madison, James, opposes Jay 
Treaty, 210; and the Farewell 
Address, 224; letter of W. to, 
158; 156, 159, 160, i6i, 163, 165, 
168, 194, 242. 

Marie Antoinette, execution of, 193. 

Marshall, John, Life of Washington, 
quoted, 28, 136, 137-139; on 
X.Y.Z. mission to France, 215; 
47, 251, 258. 

Mason, George, plan of association, 
52, 53; letter to W., 56; letter of 
W. to, 56; 161, 168, 169. 

Massachusetts, leads in opposing 
acts of British Crown, 49; char- 
ter of, suspended, 58, 59; popu- 
lation of, in 1775, 67, 68; and 
Virginia, jealousy between, 64; 
freed from British troops, 74. 

Mather, W., The Young Man's 
Companion, 4. 

Meil, Mrs., 30, 31. 

Mifflin, Thomas, of the Conway 
Cabal, 116; 138, 139, 161. 

Military dictatorship under W., 
fear of, 141, I42,'i54. 

Militia, W. quoted on, 81. 

Miner, Rev. James, 252. 

Mississippi River, Lower, closed to 
Americans by treaty with Spain, 

155- 
Moffatt, Rev. Mr., 252. 
Monarchy, fears of reversion to, 142. 
Monmouth, Battle of, 106. 
Monongahela River, 13. 
Monroe, James, Minister to France, 

recalled by W., 216; his letter to 

Committee of Public Safety, 116; 

242. 



Montcalm, Louis Joseph, Marquis 

de, 28. 
Montgomery, Richard, at Quebec, 

71, 72; 77- _ 

Morgan, Daniel, 122. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 161, 167, 168, 
207. 

Morris, Robert, letter to W., 88; 161. 

Morris, Roger, 32, 80. 

Morristown, winter quarters at, 89. 

Mossum, Rev. Peter, 35. 

Mount Vernon, inherited by Law- 
rence Washington, 5; hospitality 
of, 7, 45; W. manager of, 12; inher- 
ited by W., 33; a model plantation 
of its kind, 39, 43, 44; W. returns 
to, after the war, 139; his life at, 
146; his last days at, 232 ff.; his 
funeral at, 251-253. 

Napoleon I, 218, 240. 

National Gazette, 220, 222. 

Neal, John, quoted, 3. 

Neutrality, Proclamation of, gives 
offense to both England and 
France, 204; the only rational 
course, 205. 

New England, manufacturing in, 
68; freed from British troops, 74. 

New Jersey, 155. 

New York City, W.'s headquarters 
at, 76; Howe's fleet arrives at, 76; 
loyalist sentiment in, 78, 79, 121; 
British troops return to, 105, 106; 
W.'s farewell to officers at, 136, 
137; W. inaugurated as President 
at, 176, 177; ceases to be national 
capital, 182^. 

New York State, fails to choose 
electors in 1788, 175, 

North, Frederick, Lord, Prime Min- 
ister, 54; his subservience to the 
King, 54, 55; retires after York- 
town, 130; 60, 61. 

North Carolina, British victories 
in, 122. 

Northwest, the, T^.'s vision of de- 
velopment of, 144, 145. 



270 



INDEX 



Office-seekers, W. and, i8o. 
O'Hara, General, 125. 
Ohio River, 13. 
Oriskany, Battle of, 92. 
Osgood, Samuel, 229. 
Otis, James, 49. 

Pall-holders at W.'s funeral, 252. 

Paris, Treaty of (1763), 28, 29. 

Paris, Treaty of (1783), 130, 131; 
W. quoted on, 131. 

Parliament, passes and repeals 
Stamp Act, 49; lays duties on 
paper, tea, etc., 49; other irritat- 
ing measures passed by, 53, 58; 
enacts penal laws, 58, 59. 

"Parsons Cause, The," 50. 

Parties, in W.'s first term, 186, 187. 

Peale, Charles, portrait of W., 148, 
150. 

Peale, Rembrandt, portrait of PF., 148. 

Pearson, Captain. 120. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 59. 

Pennsylvania, population of, in 1775, 
68; 58, 155. 

Peter the Great, 259. 

Philadelphia, non-importation agree- 
ment of merchants of, 52; Con- 
tinental Congresses meet at, 59, 
64; W. at, 75 ff.; British troops 
at, in 1777-78, 104, 105; W. takes 
possession of, 106; to be national 
capital for ten years, 183, 185; 
Genet at, 196. 

Philipse, Frederick, 31. 

Philipse, Mary, 31, 32. 

Pickering, Timothy, Cabinet offices 
held by, 228, 229; 231, 

Pinckney, Charles, 59, 162. 

Pinckney, Charles C, on X.Y.Z. 
mission to France, 215, 216; 59, 
162, 165, 166, 217. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 
effect of his accession to power, 
27, 28; dismissed by George III. 
29; his last appearance in the 
Lords, 119, and death, 120. 

Pitt, William, the younger, 55, 62. 



Pittsburgh, on site of Fort Du- 
quesne, 34, 255, 

Plassey, Battle of, 48. 

Portraits of W., 148, 149, 150, 

President, discussion as to term and 
method of election of, 167, 168; 
W.'s view of office of, 178; W.'s 
example as preventive of third 
term for, 223, 224. 

Press, the, virulence and indecency 
of, 219/. 

Princeton, Battle of, 86, 87. 

Privateering, effect of French Alli- 
ance on, 108, 120, 121. 

Protective tariff, Hamilton's, 188, 

Pulaski, Count Casimir, 95, 97. 

Quebec, Battle of, 28, 48; abortive 
attack on, 71, 72; persistence in 
project of capturing, 77. 

Quincy, Josiah, 49. 

Rail, Colonel, 86. 

Randolph, Edmund, Attorney-Gen- 
eral, 181, 186, 229; Secretary of 
State, 206, 228; his "Vindication," 
229, 230; letter of W. to, 208, 
209; 59, 161, 169, 193. 

Randolph, Peyton, 59. 

Rawlins, Mr., 243, 253. 

Reconciliation, Commission on, 109, 
120. 

Representation of States in Con- 
gress, question of, settled by com- 
promise, 167. 

Republicans, 186. 

Re\-olutionary War. See American 
Revolution. 

Robinson, Beverly, 31, 

Robinson, Mr., Speaker of the House 
of Burgesses (Va.), quoted, 36. 

Rochambeau, Jean B. D. de Vi- 
meure, Count de, 122, 125. 

Rockingham, Charles Wentworth, 
Marquis of, 130. 

Rodney, George, Lord, 153. 

Rutledge, Edward, on committee to 
confer with Howe, 79; 59. 



INDEX 



271 



Rutledge, John, 59, 162, 168. 

St. Clair, General, 191. 

St. Leger, Barry, 91. 

Saratoga, Battle of, Burgoyne de- 
feated in, 93 ; effect of, in France, 99. 

Schuyler, Philip, 65. 

Senate of U.S., representation of 
States in, 167. 

Seven Years' War, 27_^.; effect of, - j. 

Shays, Daniel, 158. 

Shays's Rebellion, causesof, 157, 158. 

Shelburne, William Petty, Earl of, 
130. 

Sherman, Roger, 59, 161, 168. 

Shirley, William, 32. 

Slave labor, T^.'s view of, 38; 68. 

Slave trade, question of, settled by 
compromise, 165, 166. 

Slavery, why W. disapproved of, 38, 
39, 238; question of, settled by 
compromise, 164, 165. 

Slaves, PF.'s relations with, 38, 237- 
239; number of, in Colonies, in 
1775, 68. 

South Carolina, population of, in 
1775, 68; British victories in, 122; 
165. 

Sparks, Jared, his Life of Washing- 
ton, defects of, 3; quoted, 113, 116 
and n., 146. 

Spearing, Ann, 31. 

Stamp Act, 49, 51, 52, 66. 

Stark, John, defeats Burgoyne at 
Bennington, 92. 

State debts, assumption of, by 
national government, how secured, 
182-185; favored by W., 188. 

State rights, problem of, 167; a fun- 
damental subject of difference, 
187. 

States of the Confederation, W.'s 
farewell letter to governors of, 
135; after the Revolution, 152, 
156; their relations to one another, 
152, 153; lack of coherence among, 
154. 155; foreign relations of, 
ignominious, 155; delegates of, in 



Constitutional Convention, 160- 
162; ratification by, 173, 174. 
And see Paris, Treaty of (1783). 

Statues of W., 148. 

Steuben, Baron Frederick W. von, 

95, no, III. 

Stone, F. D., Struggle for the Dela- 
ware, quoted, 100, loi. 

Strong, Caleb, 161, 168. 

Stuart, Gilbert, portraits of W., 149. 

Sulgrave, English home of Washing- 
ton family, i. 

Sullivan, John, defeated on Long 
Island, 77. 

Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles M. de, 

and the X.Y.Z. mission, 216. 
Tariff, W.'s view of a, 189. 
Tarleton, Sir Banastre, 122. 
"Taxation without representation," 

55, 57- _ 
Thanacarishon, Seneca chief, quoted, 

on W., 14, 15. 
Thomas, John, 71. 
Ticonderoga, taken by Burgoyne, 91. 
Tobacco-raising in Virginia, 39, 40. 
Toner, J. M., The Daily Journal of 

George Washington, 11 n. 
Trenton, Battle of, and its effect, 

86, 87. 
Trumbull, Jonathan, letter of W. to, 

231. 
Fryon, William, 79. 

United States, debt of Confedera- 
tion turned over to, 182; excite- 
ment in, over Citizen Genet, 
195 #•! anomalous position of, be- 
tween France and England, 205, 
206; the first country in which 
free speech existed, 222; effect of 
T^.'s example on world's opinion 
of, 259. 

United States Bank, 189. 

Valley Forge, American army in 

winter quarters at, 100 jf., 118. 
Van Braam, Jacob, 14. 



272 



INDEX 



Vergennes, Charles Gravier, Count 
de, favors cause of the Colonies, 
94; secures cooperation of Spain, 
99; 142. 

Vernon, Edward, Admiral, 5, 9. 

Victoria, Queen, 153. 

Virginia, effect in, of Braddock's 
defeat, 24, 25; in the 1750's, 44, 
45; fox-hunting and horse-racing, 
45, 46; opposition in, to acts of the 
Crown, 50, 51; state of opinion 
in. 55. 56; population of, in 1775, 
67, 68; jealousy between Mass. 
and, 64; 164, 166. 

Virginia House of Burgesses, W. a 
member of, 36, 37; adopts Ma- 
son's plan of association, 53. 

Walpole, Horace, 18. 

Washington, Augustine, W^.'s father, 
marries Mary Ball, I. 

Washington, George, ancestry, l; 
birth, I, 2; childhood and edu- 
cation, 2; errors of Weems's bi- 
ography, 2, 3; absurdity of the 
cherry-tree story, 2; Sparks's ill- 
advised editing of letters of, 3, 4; 
and Mather's Young Man's Com- 
panion, 4; surveys Fairfax estate, 
5; results of his experience as sur- 
veyor, 5; his journals, 6, 7, 8, 10, 
II. 37. 38, 39, 169; his disposition, 
7, 8; attention to dress, 8, 9; de- 
clines appointment as midship- 
man, 9; commissioned major of 
militia, 9; visit to Barbados, 9, 10; 
as manager of Mt. Vernon, 12; 
sent by Dinwiddle on mission of 
warning to French, 14; and the 
"Half-King," 14, 15; second in 
command of Fry's expedition, 
15^.; was he a "silent man" ? 17, 
18; a volunteer on Braddock's ex- 
pedition, 20, 21; his account of 
the defeat, 22, 23; his conduct in 
the battle, 23; moral results of his 
campaigning, 25, 26; his early 
love-affairs, 30, 31; and Mary 



Philipse, 31, 32; his physique, 32, 
69; a sound thinker, 33, 70; 
inherits Mt. Vernon, 33; courts 
and marries Mrs. Custis, 33, 34, 
35; in House of Burgesses, 36, 37; 
as an agriculturist, ijff. ; his views 
on slave labor, 38, and slavery, 38, 
39, 238; relations with his slaves, 
38, 237-239 ; and his step-children, 
40-42; by nature a man of busi- 
ness, 42, 43; improves his edu- 
cation, 43, 44; as a country gen- 
tleman, 44#.; the hospitality of 
Mt. Vernon, 45. 

His view of the Stamp Act 
and other measures of the British 
Government, 51, 52; a loyal Amer- 
ican, 52; signs Mason's plan of 
association, 53; no doubt as to his 
position, 55, 56, 57; offers to raise 
1000 men at his own expense, 57; 
in first Continental Congress, 59, 
60; his mind made up, 62, 63; 
chosen Commander-in-chief of 
Continental forces, 64, 65; takes 
command at Cambridge, 65, 69; 
plans to blockade Boston, 69; 
jealousy among his officers, 70, 71 ; 
and military amateurs, 71; op- 
poses expedition against Canada, 
71; whips his army into shape, 
72; appeals for supply of powder, 
72; forces evacuation of Boston, 
73; moves troops to New York, 74; 
before Congress in Phila., 74, 75; 
his opinion of Congress, 75; re- 
treats from Long Island after 
Sullivan's defeat, 77, 78; inade- 
quacy of his resources, 78; moves 
army to Heights of Harlem, 80; 
on the evils of American military 
system, 80, 81 ; his troops not dis- 
couraged by his frankness, 82; 
on the difficulty of his position, 
82, 83; his movements after battle 
of White Plains, 83^.; crosses the 
Delaware and wins battles of 
Trenton and Princeton, 86; a 



INDEX 



273 



Necessary Man, 87; his fearless- 
ness of danger, 87, 88; his move- 
ments impeded by dependence on 
Congress, 90, 118, 119; his mis- 
cellaneous labors, 95 ff.; his cir- 
cular on looting by his troops, 
97, 98; on the maltreatment of 
American prisoners, 98; takes La- 
fayette on his staff, 99; chooses 
Valley Forge for winter quarters, 
100; describes its horrors, loi- 
103; enters Phila. on the heels of 
the British, 106; censures Charles 
Lee at Monmouth, 106; the un- 
eventful summer and autumn of 
1778, 109; refuses to commute 
Andre's sentence, ill; jealous 
ambitions of his associates: the 
Conway Cabal, ill ff.; and Gates, 
114; and C. Lee, 114-116, 116 w.; 
on the intrigues of his enemies, 
117, 1 18; difficulties of his position, 
118; forced inactivity of, 121; 
marches South to Virginia, 123: 
lays siege to Yorktown, and forces 
Cornwallis to surrender, 122-125; 
the country unanimous in giving 
him credit for the final victory, 
128, 129. 

His view of the problems to be 
solved after the peace, 131; urges 
payment of troops in full, 131- 
I33i 134; and the plan to make 
him king, 134, 135; his letter to 
governors of States, 135; his fare- 
well to his officers, 136, 137; his 
reception by, and address to. Con- 
gress, 137-139; returns to Mt. 
Vernon, 139; his life there, de- 
scribed, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146, 
147; fears of military dictator- 
ship under, 141, 142; his vision of 
the development of the Northwest, 
144, 145; declines all gifts and 
pay for his services, 146; his corre- 
spondence, 147, 148; fears further 
trouble with England, 153; his 
pessimism over the outlook for 



the future, 156, 157; reluctantly 
consents to sit in Constitutional 
Convention, 158, 159; and the 
Society of the Cincinnati, 159; 
President of the Convention, 163, 
164, 168, 169, 170; his view of the 
Constitution, 1 70 Jf.; unanimously 
elected first President of the U.S., 
1 75 ; the journey to New York and 
inauguration, 176, 177, 

His receptions as President, 
178, 179, 180, 181; his inaugural 
address, 179; dealings with office- 
seekers, 180; his first Cabinet, 181, 
186; serious illness of, 185, 186; 
appoints Justices of Supreme 
Court, 186; a Federalist, 187, 199, 
215; favors Assumption, 187, 188; 
his tariff views, 189; his visit to 
Boston, 189, 190; sends expedi- 
tions against Indians, 191; ap- 
proves Hamilton's centralizing 
measures, 192; determined to 
maintain neutrality as between 
France and England, 193; deals 
firmly with Genit, 198; open criti- 
cism of, 199, 200, 201, 2igff.; his 
sympathies generally with Hamil- 
ton against Jefferson, 199; effect 
on, of newspaper abuse, 201, 223; 
disinclined to serve second term, 
201; reelected, 202, 203, 204; 
issues Proclamation of Neutrality, 
204; its effect, 204, 205; appoints 
Randolph to succeed Jefferson, 
206; and the Jay Treaty, 207^.; 
sends C. C. Pinckney to replace 
Monroe in Paris, 215; why he re- 
called Monroe, 215, 216; consents 
to act as Commander-in-Chief in 
1799, 217, 240; puts down Whis- 
key Insurrection, 218, 219; favors 
maintenance of free speech, 222; 
declines to consider a third term, 
223; effect in later years of the 
precedent set by him, 223, 224; 
his "Farewell Address," 224-227; 
what would he have done in 1914? 



274 



INDEX 



228; changes in his Cabinet, 228, 
229; and the charges against Ran- 
dolph, 229, 230. 

Again in retirement at Mt. 
Vernon, 231 ff.; and Nelly Custis, 
233; his career reviewed, 234, 
254-260; Bernard quoted on, 234- 
236; his detractors, 236, 237; his 
religious beliefs, 239, 240; declines 
all public undertakings, 240; his 
last illness, 241 ff.; the last hours 
described by T. Lear, 243-249; 
his death, 249; action of Congress 
and President Adams, 251; his 
funeral at Mt. Vernon, 252, 253; 
project for memorial of, aban- 
doned, 254; his rank as a soldier, 
256, 257; as President, 258; the 
most actual statesman of his time, 
258; his example made the world 
change its mind about republics, 

259- 

Portraits and statues oi, 148-150. 

Letters (quoted in whole or 
in part) to John Adams, 217; 
Theodorick Bland, 131; Rev. Mr. 
Boucher, 41; William Byrd, 20; 
Thomas Conway, 112; Francis 
Dandridge, 51; Robert Din- 
widdie, 17, 22; Bryan Fairfax, 62; 
John Hancock, 9; Benjamin Har- 
rison, 143; Sir W. Howe, 98; 
Robert Jackson, 24; John Jay, 
142, 157; Thomas Jefferson, 221; 
Henry Knox, 170; Marquis de 
Lafayette, 143, 145, 170, 171; 
Henry Laurens, 10 1, 117; Henry 
Lee, 203, 221; Richard H. Lee, 
96, 147; Robert Mackenzie, 63; 
George Mason, 56; Gouverneur 
Morris, 207; Edmund Randolph, 
208; Jonathan Trumbull, 231; 
John Augustine Washington, 23. 
75, 85; Lund Washington, 82; 
Martha (Custis) Washington, 34: 
Mary Ball Washington, 24. 
Washington, John, W.'s great- 
grandfather settles in Virginia, i. 



Washington, John Augustine, W.'s 
brother, letters of W. to, 75, 85; 
I, II, 23. 

Washington, Lawrence, W.'s half- 
brother, inherits Mount Vernon, 
5; I^'.'s guardian, 5; marries Lord 
Fairfax's daughter, 5; visits Bar- 
bados with W., 9-1 1 ; his death, 
' II, 12; 7, 33. 

Washington, Lund, letter of W. to, 
82, 83. 

Washington, Mrs. Martha (Custis), 
quoted, 104; and W.'s last illness, 
243 ff-; letter of, to President 
Adams, 254; buried at Mount Ver- 
non, 254; 9, 38, 41, 43, 45, 252, 

253. 
Washington, Mrs. Mary (Ball), 

W.'s mother, 2, 9, 24. 
Washington, Mildred, W.'s niece, 

W. guardian of, 12; her death, 

12. 
Washington family, the, i. 
Wayne, Anthony, 191. 
Webster, Daniel, quoted, 188; 211. 
Webster, Peletiah, 156. 
Weems, Rev. Mason L., his Life of 

Washington, discredited, 2, 3, 
West Point, surrendered by Arnold, 

no. 
Whigs, in Parliament, favor Colo- 
nies, 54, 62. 
Whiskey Insurrection, the, 218, 219. 
White House (Custis estate), 34, 35, 

36. 
White Plains, Battle of, 83. 
Wilson, James, 161. 
Wister, Owen, 30 n. 
Wolcott, Oliver, Jr., 228, 229. 
Wolfe, James, 28, 105. 
Wythe, George, 161. 

X.Y.Z. mission to France, 215, 216. 

Yates, Robert, 161. 

Yorktown, Cornwallis surrenders at, 
123 ff.; the war really ended at, 
126; effect in England, 130. 



